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Ryan Lochte, James Magnussen and Liu Zige yesterday won the early gold medals on offer at the World Swimming Championships, while Rikke Moller Pedersen broke the women’s 200m breaststroke world record. |
Lochte won his first gold medal in the Palau Sant Jordi pool as he finished first in the 200m individual medley. Lochte, who on Sunday won silver with the American 4x100m freestyle relay, won in 1:54.98, beating Japan’s Kosuke Hagino by 1.31 seconds. Brazilian Thiago Pereira was just 0.01 seconds behind for the bronze.
In the men’s 100m freestyle event, defending champion James Magnussen, who lost out on Olympic gold by 0.01 seconds, came from fifth at the turn to win in 47.71, beating Americans James Feigen (47.82) and Olympic champion Adrian Nathan.
Russian Vladimir Morozov, who was lying 0.23 under world record time at the split, faded after the turn and finished fifth—0.30 behind the winner.
China’s Liu Zige denied local favourite Mireia Belmonte gold in the women’s 200m butterfly. The 2008 Olympic champion won in 2:04.59, with Belmonte taking silver 0.19 behind. The bronze went to Hungarian Katinka Hosszu.
Though it was Zige’s best performance of the year, it was still far from her world record performance established in October 2009 (2:01.81).
It was a very interesting duel with local hero Belmonte, fighting until the end for the victory: in the end, the Iberian swimmer got the silver in 2:04.78.
Zige now has one medal of each colour in the event, after taking silver in 2009 (behind Australia’s Jessicah Schipper) and bronze in 2011 (an event won by her teammate Liuyang Jiao, the 2012 Olympic champion). Jiao, also competing in the final in Barcelona, could not do better than sixth, in 2:06.65.
Pedersen, 24, who led her semi-final in the women’s 200m breaststroke from the start, finished in 2:19.11 seconds—0.48 seconds faster than the old mark held by American Rebecca Soni. Russian Yuliya Efimova had the second-fastest time, with local favourite Marina Garcia following.
It was the third world record at the 15th FINA world championships on the fourth day of competition. Lithuanian Ruta Meilutyte was the first on Monday in the 100m breaststroke, followed by Katie Ledecky in the women’s 1,500m freestyle final. Both Meilutyte and Ledecky are only 16 years old.
In the women’s 100m freestyle semi-finals, Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom topped the qualifiers into today’s final in 52.87 seconds, followed by Malawi-born Cate Campbell, who lives and swims in Australia. Ranomi Kromowidjojo and Feemke Heemskerk from the Netherlands had the third and fourth-fastest time.
In women’s 50m backstroke, Jing Zhao of China confirmed her credentials by winning the gold in 27.29, and at the same time also winning the duel with her teammate Yuanhui Fu, silver medallist in 27.39. Fu was the best performer of the season, with a 27.22 effort established in April in Zhengzhou, but could not improve. It was however the first medal at Worlds for the 17-year-old Chinese swimmer. Zhao has now five awards in FINA’s major showcase.
Zhao also holds the world record (27.06) in the event, which she set at the 2009 FINA World Championships in Rome.
The bronze went to Japan’s Aya Terakawa who came home in 27.53—she was better two years ago in Shanghai, where she got the silver in this event. The 28-year-old Japanese backstroker had left the 2012 arena in London with two bronze medals, in the 100m backstroke and 4x100m medley relay.