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14/07/2008
www.fina.org
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By Camillo
Cametti
FINA Press Commission Chairman
Eleven
finals were contested on the last championships
session.
Italy’s Luca Dotto (90) and Luca
Leonardi (91) went 1-2 in the men’s 100m freestyle final
to clinch respectively the gold and the silver medal.
Dotto won the title in 50.06 - a championships record,
0.23 seconds faster than that set in the preliminaries
by Orinoco Faamausuli - swimming from lane 1 while
Leonardi’s second place, with 50.11 (his p.b.) came from
lane 4. Both swimmers come from Northern Italy, Dotto
from near Padua, Leonardi from near Milan.
For the
bronze medal Russia’s Oleg Tikhobaev (90) had a swift
final hand touch and conquered the bronze in 50.33, just
0.01 seconds ahead of Germany’s Dimitri Colupaev
(90).
The women’s 200m breaststroke was hard fought. The duel between Russia’s
Olga Detenyuk (93) and Japan’s Keiko Fukudome (93), both 15, was thrilling. Eventually the Russian won in 2:25.19, a
championships record, with the Japanese just 0.20 seconds behind, taking
the silver medal. Laura Sogar of the United States was third in 2:26.41.
かごんま弁翻訳
女性の200mの平泳ぎは、わっぜいすごか戦いやった。
ロシアのオルガ選手（93）と日本の福留景子選手（93）ふたいともまだ15歳の対決は、目が飛んでっくらいゾクゾクしたど。
結局、オルガ選手が2:25.19のチャンピオンシップ記録で勝ち、ほんのちびっと0.20秒遅れせい福留景子選手が銀メダル
を取たげな。アメリカ合衆国のローラ選手は、2:26.41の第３位でした。
PS。中村会長もわっぜい喜んじょった。よーきばったねケイコ
The men’s 200m
backstroke title was conquered by Kiwi Kurt Basset (90),
in a championships record time of 1:59.67 (improving on
his 2:00.19, set during the preliminaries). It was the
fifth gold medal for New Zealand (out of five medals
won). Basset’s win was clean, with the second and third
distanced respectively of little less and little more of
a second: Canada’s Matthew Swanston (91) took the silver
in 2:00.53 with Poland’s Radoslaw Kawecki taking the
bronze in 2:00.72.
Two Japanese climbed on the
women’s 100m butterfly podium: Natsuki Akiyama (91),
already the winner of 200m butterfly, conquered her
second gold medal with the time of 59.58 while Yui
Miyamoto (92) necked the bronze in 1:00.05. In between
the fifteen-year-old Italian Silvia Di Pietro (93)
conquered a bitter silver medal just 0.02 seconds behind
Akiyama.
An all European podium was witnessed in
the men’s 1500m freestyle. Krzysztof Pielowski (91) of
Poland won the event in 15:25.01, more than a second
ahead of Russia’s Artem Podyakov (90), 15:26.56.
France’s Raoul Shaw (90) was third in
15:31.07.
Another French climbed on the next
podium, this time on the highest place: it was Elodie
Schmitt (92) who dashed the 50m freestyle in 25.88,
enough to clinch gold just 0.07 seconds ahead of Hanna
Riordan (91) of Canada. In her turn the Canadian, with
25.95, was 0.06 seconds faster of Nathalie Lindborg (91)
of Sweden who clinched the bronze in 26:01.
In
the men’s 200m butterfly the Japanese Yuya Horihata (90)
and Yosuke Mori (91) emulated what their female
homologues had done earlier in the 100m butterfly: both
climbed on the podium, Horihata in first place, with
1:50.03, championships record, Mori in third with
1:59.13. Similarly to the women’s 100m butterfly podium,
an Italian, this time Federico Bussolin (90) clinched
the silver medal in 1:59.32. Bussolin had clocked the
fastest preliminaries time with 2:00.01, a short lived
championships record.
The men’s 50m breaststroke
was an extremely tight race. All three medallists came
in within just three hundredths of a second, indeed an
unusual circumstance: the first two, Great Britain’s
Daniel Sliwinski (90) and Serbia’s Caba Siladji were
separated by a mere one hundredth of a second: 28.37,
and 28.38 their respective times; the third, Italy’s
Andrea Toniato conquered the bronze in 28.40: all went
under the previous championships record of 28.42 (set by
Siladji in the semi-finals).
USA’s Dagny Knutson
(92) won her fifth gold medal – her third individual –
in the 200n freestyle. She took this event in a
championships record of 1:59.78. This victory put the
USA on track again for the supremacy in the gold medal
count. Knutson’s compatriot Samantha Tucker (91) won the
silver medal in 2:00.41 while Australia’s Ellen
Fullerton (92) was third in 2:01.18.
The 6-day
long championships were concluded by the two medley
relays events.
Great Britain triumphed among the
men in 3:41.69, a championships record, ahead of Japan
which narrowly beat the United States for the silver
medals: 3:42.61 and 3:42.79 the respective times of the
two teams. The British quartet was formed by Chris
Walker-Hebborn (56.62), Daniel Sliwinski (1:02.08),
James Doolan (52.97) and Robert Bale (50.02).
On
the women side, the Japanese quartet of Sayaka Akase,
Mina Matsushima, Natsuli Akiyama and Shiori Kaneko after
winning the race suffered a painful disqualification due
to (the anchor leg) Kaneko’s early start : she had left
the podium 0.02 seconds earlier (at these championships
a “zero tolerance” was applied). Victory was then
awarded to the United States with the time of 4:06.90
(Pelton 1:03.06, Sogar 1:08.87, Mcelhany 1:00.41, Tucker
54.56), a new championships record. Australia was second
with 4:07.59, narrowly ahead of Canada
(4:07.76).
Elena Sokolova (RUS), Dagny Knutson
(USA) and Daniel Bell (NZL) were the three best
swimmers, with three individual wins (15 points) each.
Natsuki Akiyama (JAP), Grace Loh (AUS), Danila Izotov
(RUS), Krzysztof Pielowski (POL) and Daniel Sliwinski
(GBR) were the other individual multiple winners, with
two victories (10 points) each.
The United States
were the best team, both in term of medals and in the
team rankings resulting from the point system. The USA’
superiority came mainly from their strong female team
which conquered as many as 17 medals out of an overall
total of 21, including 8 gold (9), 5 silver (6) and 4
bronze (6). Russia was second (7, 2, 4) while New
Zealand, for once ahead of Australia, was third with 5
gold. In terms of total medals Japan was third with 12,
Australia and Italy fourth with 10 each. Germany won
most silver (7) while Canada took most bronze
(6).
As to the points, the USA won the Combined
Team Scores, with 820.50, ahead of Japan (634), Russia
(585), Canada (528.5), Great Britain (431), Germany
(402.5), Italy (386), Poland (315.5), Australia (273),
France (240), and New Zealand (192).
With the
second edition, at UANL Swimming complex in Monterrey,
Mexico, the FINA World Junior Swimming Championships
have definitely taken off, by all terms: participation,
world representation and excellences of
performances.
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