D’Artagnan Dias contributed to this report:
The first event, the men’s 200 breast, was an exciting race between two teammates from Corinthians. Felipe França and Thiago Simon battled, with França opening with a 27.7 and Simon pulling ahead at 100, 59.29 to 59.9. Simon opened up his lead even more until the last 25, when França close very strong. It wasn t enough, though, to overcome Simon, who finished in 2:04.28, a new South American Record. The old mark was 2:04.35, set by Henrique Barbosa in 2009 in a now-banned shiny suit. França made the cut for Short Course Worlds (2:04.92) swimming a 2:04.50. Tales Cerdeira (Unisanta) got third in 2:06.77. In an interview after the race, Simon said his taper felt somewhat out-of-sync, as he felt much better now than he did at PanPacs. His best short course time before this meet was 2:07.98.
Another South American Record fell with Argentina’s Julia Sebastian (Unisanta), already the SA record holder in the 100 and 200 long course breaststroke. Sebastian won in 2:23.09, but despite the record-breaking swim, didn’t have much room for error. She was followed closely by the Netherlands’ Moniek Nijhuis (Fiat/Minas) the whole way. Nijhuis went 2:23.53 and Juliana Marin(Fiat/Minas) took third with a 2:27.28.The old South American Record was a 2:26.17 from Argentina’s Augustina Giovanni, meaning the entire top three got under the continental mark.
The mens 100 fly was a close race till 75 meters, when Marcos Macedo (Fiat/Minas) pulled out a phelpsian underwater kickout off his last turn. His underwater work put him well ahead of the field to win in a new Championship Record of 50.06.Glauber Silva (ICB) was second with a 50.97 and Nicholas Dos Santos (Unisanta) was third in 51.50. Dos Santos had some trouble with the final turn – the wall opposite of the starting blocks is without a touchpad, as the added depth of a pad would leave the pool shorter than 25 meters, thereby invalidating any records or Word Champs cuts put up during the meet. Despite the finals miscue, though, Dos Santos will qualify for Worlds with his 50.73 from prelims.
The women’s 100 fly stayed tight early until the top three – Etiene Medeiros (SESI), Daiene Dias (Botafogo) and Daynara de Paula (SESI) – separated themselves from the field at the 50-mark. Those three stayed together till the end, with Medeiros winning in 57.40 and de Paula and Dias tying at 57.64. That’s a big breakthrough for Medeiros, who broke 58 for the first time in her career after setting a South American record yesterday. As for the second-place finishers, both got under the Worlds cut, which was 57.79. SwimSwam’s Brazilian correspondent D’Artagnan Dias tells us it’ll likely both will wind up swimming the event at Worlds, as Medeiros would have a conflict between the 100 fly and 50 back. If Medeiros does elect to swim the race, though, the tie will be broken by whoever has the best second event at this meet between De Paula and Daiene Dias.
The men’s 1500 free was an interesting race. Leonardo De Deus (Corinthians) opened like a mad man in lane 1, pulling well ahead of the field, but fell off horribly after a dominant 700-800 meters. Around 1000 meters, his teamate, 17-year-old Brandonn Almeida, swimming all the way on the other side of the pool in lane 8, started to make a move. Almeida increased his tempo, and split 100 times right around 59 seconds over the last five hundred meters to win in 14:50.31. That improved his personal best by over 28 seconds. Esteban Enderica (Fluminense) moved up to second in 14:57.82 and Lucas Kanieski (Fiat/Minas) was third in 15:01.28.\