Medeiros & Fratus Keep The Good Times Rolling At Brazil Open

On the final day of the 2015 Brazil Open, one of two Olympic-qualifying meets for Brazilian swimmers, an additional six FINA “A” cuts were obtained, as two more Championship Records also bit the dust in Palhoca.

Psych Sheet and Live Results
Day 1 Prelims/ Day 1 Finals
Day 2 Prelims/ Day 2 Finals
Day 3 Prelims/ Day 3 Finals

Etiene Medeiros doubled up on her Olympic-qualifying time in the 100m freestyle with a stunner of a performance in the splash n’ dash this morning.  Clocking a time of 24.96, Medeiros raced well under the FINA A cut of 25.28 and set a new meet record in the process. In the 100, she wound up swimming a bit slower in finals, so we’ll see if that’s the case in this event as well.  Nonetheless, the girl-on-fire is pleased with her swim:

50m livres É NOSSO!!! ?✨ Mais uma para as Olimpíadas! #vaiBrasil #Rio2016 #Open2015

A photo posted by Etiene Medeiros (@etimedeiros) on Dec 19, 2015 at 4:55am PST

Of note, Lorrane Ferreira, already nabbed a FINA A cut in this event earlier in the meet by way of her lead-off split for the Minas Tenis squad, equaling the standard of 25.28. As she swam this event now individually, that time is void and she’ll now need to shave some tenths off of her 25.39 from this morning in order to clear the A cut.

Bruno Fratus was in a similar situation as well, as his 50m lead-off from his Minas Tenis’ squad 200m freestyle relay on night 1 resulted in an eye-popping lead-off 5o in a time of 21.37, the best of his career. That time surged to the top of the world rankings this season, but also decimated the FINA “A” qualifying standard of 22.27 by nearly a second.  As Fratus chose to contest the event individually, the relay lead-off doesn’t count towards qualification.  However, Fratus got the job done individually this morning, clocking a mark of 21.66, slower than 21.37, but well ahead of the A cut.

Marcelo Chierghini, who finished just outside of the top 2 in the men’s 100m freestyle in terms of overall qualifying times, came in 2nd this morning to Fratus. Chierghini crushed a time of 22.17 to finish .10 of a second ahead of the FINA A cut.

The men’s 100m breaststroke was the other event in which a meet record was broken in just the prelims on this final day of competition. Felipe Franca raced his way to a sub-minute clocking, touching the wall in a time of 59.56 to come away with the top seed.  In doing so, Franca dipped beneath the FINA A cut of 1:00.57 and also eclipsed the championship record, which sat at 1:00.31 from 2013.

But Franca wasn’t the only stud to crack the A cut.  He was hunted by Felipe Lima and Pedro Cardona, who touched in times of 1:00.09 and 1:00.41, respectively. As such, they both earned an Olympic-qualifying time, but will need to step it up a notch to try to get into the 59-second territory in finals.

Additional events contested this morning included the women’s 100m breaststroke, led by Ana Carla Carvalho in a time of 1:10.20, the women’s 200m butterfly led by Joanna Marahao who touched in 2:13.60, as well as the women’s 400m freestyle, which saw Manuella Lyrio finish 1st in prelims in 4:15.50. None of these women scored an “A” cut in the morning, but they’ll get their 2nd shot in finals tonight

The men saw Kaio Marcio Almeida clock a 1:57.98 in the men’s 200m butterfly, just about a second behind the A cut, while Marcos Oliveira registered a time of 3:55.11 in the men’s 400m freestyle.  He’ll need to shave about 5 seconds off that mark if he wants to clock an A qualifying time.