News
31/07/2009Five gold medals today, waiting for tomorrow's challenges
The afternoon at the Swimming stadium opened with Britta Steffen World record: she made the better of her rivals ruling the whole Women’s 100m Freestyle race.
Another “Gold ‘n record” Final is the Men’s 200m Backstroke one, thanks to Aaron Peirsol’s performance, who preceded the young Japanese Ryosuke Irie.
In the Women’s 50m Butterfly, Swedish Therese Alshammar sets the best time and the World record, stopping the chronometer at 25.07. Dutch Veldhius and Norwegian Snildal place after her.
Great challenge between Brazilian Cielo and French Bousquet in the Men’s 50m Freestyle: the Brazilian had got the gold medal in the 100m race; this time the French prevailed in the ranking setting the best time and preceding Croatian Draganja and French Leveaux. Cielo Filho is only fourth. It’s gonna be an exciting Final.
American Rebecca Soni was the favorite athlete in the Women 200m Breaststroke, but she slowed down in the last lap leaving the gold medal to Serbian Nadja Higl. Annamay Pierse and Mirna Jukic completed the podium.
We’ll have another brilliant challenge in the Men’s 100m Butterfly, with Michael Phelps and Milorad Cavic who hardly fought in the Semifinals. The Serbian athlete defeated the guy from Baltimora outdistancing him for 47 hundredths of a second and snatching him the relative World record (50.01).
In the Women’s 200m Backstroke Semifinals Kirsty Coventry took the first position setting the Championships record and preceding Russian Zueva and British Simmonds. Hungarrian Daniel Gyurta achieved the gold medal for hundredth a second in the Men’s 200m Breaststroke, preceding American Shanteau and Lithuanian Titenis in a beautiful Final race.
The Men’s 4x200m relay saw the United States’ triumpf (thanks to Phelps, Berens, Walters, Lochte): the Americans preceded Russia and Australia in the ranking. Only the sixth position for Italy, despite of a good performance.