The final day of a fantastic 2013 Swedish Championship meet wrapped up Sunday in Halmstad. This meet, part of a huge multi-sport festival, showed a healthy Swedish team preparing for the World Championships one month from now.
Among the victors on the last day of competition, Sarah Sjostrom won the 100 free in 54.02, which broke her own Meet Record from this same event in 2011. For Sjostrom, that made five individual wins in five individual swims in five days. Maybe more significantly, she finished the meet very well, with her two best swims coming on day four and day five.
Behind her, Michelle Coleman took 2nd in 54.57 and Louise Hansson was 3rd in 55.33. All three of those swimmers are 20-years-old or younger (and Hansson as young as 16), and so regardless of what Swedish legend Therese Alshammar decides to do with her career going forward, there is a relay future in the country.
Stina Gardell took down her 2nd Meet Record in the 200 IM, following one in the 400 IM earlier in the meet. In the shorter race on Sunday, Gardell was a 2:13.42 for the victory. Her better of the two races is the 400 IM, but this year her 200 IM has looked better than the 400 IM. Headed toward Barcelona, she’s a threat to final in both races.
The third record went down to Simon Sjodin in his best event, the men’s version of the 200 IM, with a 2:00.47 (over a four second margin of victory ahead of his club teammate, but Texas A&M trained, Simon Frank).
Sjodin went out very fast in his race (56.1); this is a bit of uncharted territory for him: he really turned a corner in the summer of 2012, but when the devastation of missing the Olympic Team set in, he wrapped his long course competition season in about May.
Still, we can project that this is a very good result for him, and leaves him perhaps ready to push down into the 1:58’s at Worlds.
Mattias Carlsson added another win of his own with a 1:52.24 in the 200 free, finishing ahead of Jesper Jonsson, Christoffer Carlsen, and Gustav Lejdstrom, who all finished within four-hundredths of each other in 1:52-highs.
Martina Grantsrom took two wins in the final session, beginning with the 200 fly in 2:10.13. She followed that up, just over an hour later, with a 17:16.01 in the 1500 free.
And finally, Andreas Furst won the men’s 100 breaststroke in a 1:03.0; Johannes Skagius, the country’s best male breaststroker, is one of the few members of the World Championship team who has opted out of this championship meet.