Women’s 100 free semifinal
Femke Heemskerk looked like she was cruising in this 100 free semifinal with a very Lochte-esque finish to take a mark of 53.67 for the 2nd seed. That was a great swim for both swimmers, and the pair should be well out ahead in the final. Alicia Coutts of Australia stepped up big in this final with a career-best time in 53.78, followed by Jeanette Ottesen who matched her prelims mark identically in 53.88.
The only other swimmer under 54 was Ranomi Kromowidjojo from the Netherlands in 53.94.
The top seeded Halsall said afterwards that she didn’t feel good in her race in the morning heats, and wanted to come out in the semifinals and make a statement. I’d say she did just that with this swim
Full women’s 100 free semifinals results.
Men’s 200 IM Final
This was a two-swimmer race all the way throughout, and its now becoming increasingly clear that Phelps and Lochte push each other to great heights. But on this day, Lochte was pushed ever-so-slightly higher with the first long course World Record since FINA banned polyurethane suits after the 2009 season.
When Lochte went out within a tenth of Michael Phelps on the butterfly leg, you knew this mark was in trouble. He predictably led the backstroke leg, and then beat everyone not named Michael Phelps by well over a second, and there’s some very good breaststrokers in this field. Phelps was a touch faster on the freestyle, but Lochte had already earned himself enough of a lead that he was only chasing the World Record line.
Here’s a look at the comparative splits between this swim and Lochte’s 2009 World Record:
2009: 24.72 | 28.48 | 33.08 | 27.82 = 1:54.10
2011: 24.89 | 28.59 | 33.03 | 27.49 = 1:54.00
Those splits make it clear where the difference in this race was, and that’s through the push of Michael Phelps on the freestyle leg. Remember that in 2009, Phelps didn’t swim this race at World’s, and nobody was within a second of him headed into the freestyle leg. Lochte seems to have really taken his training to a new level since 2009 as well, and in the intensity of Gregg Troy’s program, that conditioning surely made a difference.
Along with this win comes a $100,000 bonus for Lochte, of which the always-hysterical Markus Rogan said after the race that “Lochte said he wanted to make $100,000 as fast as possible and then spend it all in Vegas.”
Phelps almost broke the old World Record as well, with a 1:54.16. He also had a phenomenal breaststroke split in this race.
Perhaps intimidated by those two, most of this final was a bit slow (even compared to the early rounds), with Laszlo Cseh winning bronze in 1:57.69. Cseh might go down as one of the best 200 IM’ers to never win gold in the race, as in four World Championships he now has two silvers and two bronzes. James Goddard of Britain was 4th (1:57.79) in their highest-finish so far on the men’s side. Perhaps that narrow miss will catapult him onto the medal stand in front of a home crowd in London next year.
Here’s the link to watch Lochte’s full World Record swim.
Women’s 200 breaststroke semifinals
This was Rebecca Soni’s race, plan-and-simple. It will be Rebecca Soni’s race in the final. Put money on it, put your mortgage on it. Soni took the top seed here in 2:21.03 headed into that final, which was more than two-seconds clear of the rest of the field. Her closing 50 was pretty similar to what it was in prelims, but she made up a big chunk of time by going out much harder in this race (which is usually an indicator that she’s pouring on full-steam). It’s not clear as to how much left she has to give to chase down Annamay Pierse’s World Record in the final; you will remember that in the 100, her best mark was put up in a “statement” swim in the semifinal, which successfully scared of any and all challengers in the final.
Her Trojan Aquatics teammate Yuliya Efimova seemed to really separate herself to take the second seed in 2:23.66. She didn’t go out nearly as hard as one might expect from a sprinter, though she may have put her focus on this 200 for this meet. In lane 3 as the third seed will be China’s Sun Ye in 2:24.59, followed closely by Annamay Pierse in 2:24.73.
The rest of the finalists are Denmark’s Rikke Pedersen (2:24.80), Canada’s Martha McCabe (2:24.86), Japan’s Rie Kaneto (2:25.41), and defending World Champion Nadja Higl sneaking in 8th in 2:25.56. Amanda Beard finished 11th out of the slower heat.
Full women’s 200 breaststroke semifinal results.
Men’s 100 freestyle final – Medal Race
Regardless of what happens from here on out, James Magnussen will emerge from this meet with all he could have hoped for: an all-time textile fastest swim, a relay gold medal, and an individual World Championship in the 100 free (even if the textile-best and the individual championship didn’t come from the same race). It would have been hard to imagine him matching that 47.49 he led the relay off in on a third-round swim, but he still put up a fabulous time of 47.63. That means he’s got the two-fastest textile times in history, and has twice better Pieter van den Hoogenband’s old standard of 47.84.
This is, a bit shockingly, the first ever World Championship gold medal from Australia in the men’s 100 free (though they had three Olympic gold medalists in the 50’s and 60’s). In a race that is trending older, this makes him the youngest World Champion (at 19 years and about 3 months) since the USA’s Andy Coan in 1975 as a 17-year old. The last 19-year old to win this race in a bit of symmetry was Jorg Woithe of East Germany in 1982, who had the same birthday (April 11th) as Magnussen, though that year’s World Championships in Ecuador didn’t start until the end of July.
Magnussen continued to confirm that he’s a 100-200 swimmer (not 50-100) as he went out a bit behind the field in 22.94, and back in a 24.69. The closing 50 was the fastest in the race, which is where the real separation came from, after Cesar Cielo went out very hard (22.63) but couldn’t come home, to finish 4th by . Bodes well for the Brazilian’s chances in the 50 though.
The final as a whole might not have been as fast as the semifinals had indicated, though in the grand scheme it was certainly a swift race in historical context. He swam a 47.95 to take the bronze medal, after lackluster swims up until this point, and though Magnussen has really recalibrated what we call “fast,” remember that in 2007 Hayden’s time would have won the gold by half-a-second. France’s William Meynard (who like Hayden and Magnussen is a real back-half swimmer) took bronze in 48.00.
Nathan Adrian, who was faster in prelims, finished disappointingly in 6th in 48.23.
Full men’s 100 free finals results.
Women’s 200 butterfly final – Medal Race
With many of the favorites out of this final (defending European Champion Katinka Hosszu, defending short course World Champion Mireia Belmonte Garcia) the medal podium was well within reach for much of the field in this race. A Chinese swimmer ended up taking the gold, but not the one that you might have thought. Liu Zige, who is the defending Olympic Champion and has three of the five fastest times in history, ended up in 3rd in this race in 2:05.90. Rather it was her teammate Liuyang Jiao who took the win in 2:05.55.
Jiao received some level of criticism for travelling to Rio de Janiero, Brazil for the 2011 World Military Games, only to return to Shanghai the day before the meet started. That already caused her to drop the 100 fly from her schedule. But as this meet gets into its later stages, she seems to have recovered from any lingering jetlag, and roared home to this victory. Her winning time was more than a full-second slower than she was at Chinese Nationals, but that didn’t much matter, because she took another gold for her home Chinese fans: the team’s 4th of the meet.
In between the pair was Ellen Gandy of the UK in 2:05.59. That’s Britain’s second medal of the meet: both of them silvers on the women’s side. While much of this British roster has struggled from the effects of jet lag, Gandy resides in Australia full-time, where her family lives, so the effects weren’t as severe for her as many of her countrymates. It will be interesting to see how long before the London Olympics she heads to the UK for training, as she’d surely be welcomed at any of their elite clubs.
Zige just outtouched Japan’s Natsumi Hoshi by .01 (she was a 2:05.61), and in 5th was Australia’s Stephanie Rice in 2:06.08. This was a very good swim for Rice, and was another important step in a slow-build to London coming off of shoulder surgery.
Women’s 200 fly final results.
Men’s 200 breaststroke semifinal
Japan’s Kosuke Kitajima took the top seed in the men’s 200 breaststroke semifinal in 2:08.81, just ahead of Hungarian defending champion Daniel Gyurta in 2:08.92. That stands as both swimmers’ best times of the season, and with the failure of world-leader Naoya Tomita to make the final (12th – 2:11.98), both seem to be peaking at the exact-right moment for the chance at a gold medal.
Germany’s Christian Vom Lehn continues to look good, with a 3rd seeded 2:09.44. Still not his best time of the season, but he’s definitely building the rounds. A touch behind that was Eric Shanteau in 2:10.03. The two British swimmers both finaled with Andrew Willis in 2:10.49 and Michael Jamieson in 2:10.54.
South Korea’s Kyu Woong Choi took 7th in 2:11.27 and 2009 bronze medalist Giedrius Titenis was 8th in 2:11.27. The latter was able to sneak in, but he was much slower than his top-seeded prelims time.
Remember that Alexander Dale Oen of Norway, the 100m champion, was a scratch in this event due to contracting a yet-unknown virus.
Men’s 200 breastsroke semifinal results.
Women’s 50 back final – Medal Race
In the final of the women’s 50 back, Anastasia Zueva’s strength throughout this meet came to fruition with a gold-medal winning time of 27.79, which a relatively easy margin of victory. This is Zueva’s fourth World Championship medal, though the first in gold and the first in this distance. Earlier this week, she took silver in the 100 backstroke.
Silver in this race went to Japan’s Aya Terakawa from an outside lane in 27.93. Missy Franklin took bornze in 28.01, which is her first individual long course World Championship medal of surely many to come. That swim apparently was a phenomenal warmup for the race to come for Franklin in the relay, but we’ll touch on that in a minute.
China’s Gao Chang continued a run of disappointing World Championship performances to finish off of the medal stand in 28.06. Emily Seebohm of Australia (28.07) was 5th, Julia Wilkinson of Canada tied with Aleksandra Herasimenia at 26.09 for 6th, and Spain’s Peris Mercedes Minguet finished 8th. For the Spaniard, who was under 28 in the semifinals, that could not have been the time she was hoping for in the final.
Full women’s 50 back final results.
Men’s 200 backstroke semifinal
Ryan Lochte didn’t show much sign of fatigue after his 200 IM World Record earlier in the meet, and coasted to the top seed in the 200 back in 1:55.65. Ryosuke Irie (1:55.96) and Tyler Clary (1:56.00) reaffirmed the strong expectation that those will be the three medalists, in some order, in tomorrow night’s final.
Also looking strong were China’s Fengling Zhang in 1:56.70 and Poland’s Radoslaw Kawecki in 1:57.15.
Russia’s Stanislav Donets managed to sneak into the final in 1:58.00 as the 8th seed, though he didn’t look as good as he did in prelims. Missing out on the final was the young Hungarian Peter Bernek who added a second from his prelims time (where he was seeded 2nd) with a 10th-place 1:58.14.
The most surprising name in the final is Italy’s Sebastiano Ranfagni in 1:57.96. The Italians overall have swum very well this meet, but he’s well out in front of where he was at this point last year.
Men’s 200 back semifinal results.
Women’s 800 free relay
We knew from previous swims that Missy Franklin was on fine form headed into this race, but with not much time since her 50 back, we couldn’t have expected this. She led off the American relay in 1:55.06, which is the second-fastest time in textile in history (by about a tenth) and bettered Dagny Knutson’s former 15-16 National Age Group Record for the second time on the day. Knutson also looked very strong on the 2nd leg in splitting a 1:57.18, followed by a solid 1:57.41 from Katie Hoff.
Allison Schmitt on the anchor wasn’t as great as might have been expected coming into this meet, but she still put up a solid 1:56.49 and ensured that this relay was never in doubt. The Americans’ final time was a 7:46.14. This is the Americans’ first Olympic or World Championship relay gold in long course since the 2007 World Championships, in a drought spanning three events.
The Australians looked a world better than in prelims, and with Kylie Palmer anchoring in 1:55.51 pulled within a few body lengths of the Americans in 7:47.42. Up until that point, however, it was clear American domination. Their relay went Bronte Barratt (1:56.86), Blair Evans (1:57.69), Angie Bainbridge (1:57.36), and Palmer on the anchor. One wonders if they might have been closer at the touch if they’d swum Alicia Coutts, who placed 6th at trials but is having an awesome meet, on the relay, but one will never know now.
Defending gold-medalists China finished for bronze in 7:47.66. They saw a big bounceback anchor from teenager Yi Tang, who hasn’t looked good in this meet, in 1:55.47. That’s the 2nd-fastest split of the field behind Franklin (even though Tang’s was from a rolling start).
France was a bit of a surprise to take the honor of highest-finishing European team in 4th place at 7:52.22 – well separated from the medals. Camille Muffat had a spectacular reaction time of .67, but swam a mediocre time of 1:57.83. She’ll have a difficult decision at the Olympics. This is a very young French relay that seems to be 4th-best in the world, but is still very far from a medal. She’ll have to decide if it’s worth the energy to swim this relay in London, just as she struggled with the decision before World’s.
Analysis
This was easily the most exciting day we’ve seen of World’s yet, and possibly the most exciting day we’ve seen at a World Championship in quite some time. Between Lochte taking down the World Record, Missy Franklin blowing everyone’s minds with her 200 free, Magnussen capitalizing on Australia’s first-ever sprint freestyle World Championship, and some awesome finals setups in the women’s 100 freestyle and women’s 200 breaststroke, there’s not a whole lot more that could have been asked for in this session.
The Americans are reasserting themselves as the dominant force in swimming, with two more gold medals and 4 in total on the 5th day of competition. The Chinese are also swimming very well and despite Magnussen’s win, the Australians seemed to have slipped behind them as the world’s second-best swimming nation.
Medal Table
The Americans extended their lead in the medal standings a touch on day 5, thanks to mainly their superstars. They should further extend that lead tomorrow with at least three-more gold medals appearing to be iminent. They’ve now moved a touch ahead of where they were in 2009, when at this point they had 5 golds, 5 silvers, and 3 bronze medals.
China looks very good in 2nd, with the Australians in 3rd. France continues to look solid with another bronze medal to bring their total to 6 in the meet. What really stands out on this medals table is that there are 4 countries with one gold medal, and no other medals. For what it’s worth, in 2009 no country ended the meet with this medal-line (1-0-0), though at least one of those countries surely will this year.
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  United States |
6 | 4 | 4 | 14 |
| 2 |  China |
4 | 1 | 6 | 11 |
| 3 |  Australia |
2 | 6 | 1 | 9 |
| 4 |  Italy |
2 | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| 5 |  France |
2 | 1 | 3 | 6 |
| 6 |  Brazil |
2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 7 |  Russia |
1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 8 |  Denmark |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
 Netherlands |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
 Norway |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
 South Korea |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
| 12 |  Japan |
0 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| 13 |  Canada |
0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
 Great Britain |
0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | |
| 15 |  Germany |
0 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| 16 |  Hungary |
0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
 South Africa |
0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | |
| Total | 23 | 21 | 22 | 66 | |
There’s a difference between Hoff and Franklin: Hoff’s program was much tougher than Franklin’s current or potential program.
Yea, I feel that 2000 Phelps is somewhat like Franklin last year– with the one individual swim at SC worlds and doing a pretty good job. In 2000 Phelps only had that one event where he was remotely capable of making the US squad for (he turned 8th or something at the last wall at Trials and stormed back to take 2nd). I do believe that Missy will contest 4 or 5 events at trials next year if she holds form and I feel that if she makes the team with times that are even in the same ballpark as what she’s posted this week, she can contend for medals. I dont think she should not contest an event like… Read more »
JAG,
what happened to Kukla? she has gone from bad to worse as the meet continues?
John26,
You talked about not limiting MF’s events a la Phelps.
But you forgot that Phelps only swam ONE single event when he was 15 yo, and gradually added more events as he was showing more and more true potential and growth. The addition of events was natural for Phelps. Phelps and Bowman also tried other events but edited them out as soon as it showed he would never be the best in those events (he was 3:46 in 400 in 2003, and also in backstrokes and later 100 free).
Phelps didnt swim 8 events when he was 16 yo.
I think there’s silver lining that US worlds trials were not held last month. With only 2 individual events… Read more »
The biggest obstacle for Franklin is growth. She may be close to maximising her height /weight /age ratio .
Growing taller than 6 2′ is putting her into a rare category. She does live at altitude which helps but joints & tendons are gravitational& the stresses are exponential.
So far she has the optimism of youh before the doubts of late puberty.
Conservative development for Franklin in the sense that when she does move up a level, she’s been carefully prepared for it. She was swimming well enough to make the 4×200 prelims squad for Rome but despite urging from Schubert, she did a whole bunch of events at the juniors international meet of the year instead of going to Rome.
Miss5, I can’t help it.
Poor Phelpsey…. what torment he must be going through…. ToT
Okay, just kidding. London should be fantastic.
By the way, that photo of Lochte (which I must say is not the most flattering of him), is it trying to tell us something?
What’s Ian Thorpe standing behind him looking all dejected?
That’s not what’s going to happen after Men’s 200 Free in London… is it?
As for Missy Franklin, the girl is already what 6 feet tall at age 15, 16??
The sky seems to be the limit, literally and figuratively.
Looking back, one can only wonder what if. What if Katie Hoff didn’t swim 400IM, will she win 400Fr? What if she didn’t swim back to back 200IM and 200Fr, will she win one of them? Alas, she was done by her own brilliance. If she only focused on two individual events, say the two IMs, we may talk about Katie Hoff as the female swimmer of the meet instead of Stephanie Rice. I hope Missy Franklin will model Natalie Coughlin in choosing how many individual events to swim.