Day 1 of the World Cup stop 1 has concluded in Dubai, and the short course meters competition got off to a swift start. The the full slate of World Championship events split into only two days of competition, it’s a whole lot to digest, and you all can read results as well as we can, so we’ll stick to the highlights and the races you need to know about.
Remember that each race will give out a check of $1,500 to the winner, $1,000 to the runner-up, and $500 to the third-place finisher. That’s some serious cash being thrown out that will total $102,000 over the course of the meet. Also remember that times truly do matter at these meets, because the individual swims with the highest FINA Point values will earn points towards the overall series prizes that are big enough to keep a swimmer training for at least another year.
The star of day 1 was South Africa’s Chad le Clos. He had a touch schedule with the 400 IM and 200 Fly finals coming only 28 minutes apart, but he handled them masterfully. In the 400 IM, he won in a time of 4:04.58, which is easily the fastest of the 2011-2012 short course season, and he came right back to take the 200 fly in 1:52.55. That 200 fly earned him 911 FINA Points, which makes him the day-1 leader for the 25 men’s points to go towards his series total. He would also tack on a win in the 100 IM in 53.48, though by that time, his third swim in an hour, he had tired and his time wasn’t quite as impressive.
In all three of those races, embattled Austrian Dinko Jukic took 2nd with times of 4:05.65, 1:53.17, and 53.51, respectively.
In the 200 fly, local 18-year old swimmer (and Serbian National) Velimir Stjepanovic took 4th in 1:57.74, but he was upstaged by an even younger youngster: Russia’s Andrey Tambovskiy. The 17-year old placed 3rd overall in 1:57.61, which cuts a full two seconds off of his personal best from the Stockholm World Cup meet last year.
On the women’s side, the showdown between Dutch teammates Marleen Veldhuis and Ranomi Kromowidjojo in the 50 free did not fail to disappoint. Veldhuis the veteran touched for the win in 24.14, followed closely by Kromowidjojo in 24.23. Germany’s Dorothea Brandt touched in 4th in 24.88. Normally, she would’ve been closer to her dutch competitors, but because of the hectic end of the season that the Germans had, she is probably not as far into her fall training as many of her competitors.
The top FINA points swim of the day for the women goes to the Ukraine’s Daryna Zevina. Her competitor Missy Franklin gets a lot of the publicity, but Zevina is another ultra-elite junior backstroker that swept the backstroke races at this year’s FINA World Junior Championships. In the 200 back at this meet, she won in a fantastic 2:02.94 which not only is tops in the world this season, but also would’ve been in the top-5 for all of last season. That swim earned her a cool 934 FINA points, which is going to be a tough mark for anyone to beat to snag the 25 points from her.
The lone American entered in the meat, Nelson Westby of SwimMAC Carolina, scored 3rd-place finishes in both the 50 and 200 men’s breaststrokes to score himself a solid $1,000 check.