Detti And Paltrinieri Duel, While Josa Scores Win At Trofeo Nico Sapio

43rd Trofeo Nico Sapio

The 43rd edition of the Trofeo Nico Sapio took place this week, with the age group swimmers taking to the pool yesterday, while the senior and elite swimmers got down to business in Genoa, Italy today. The meet is held every year in memory of Nico Sapio, an Italian journalist who died in a plane crash back in 1966.

Events take place in 25m and while the competition serves as an Italian qualifying meet for the upcoming Short Course World Championships, a few familiar foreign faces were also scattered among the field. Among them were Americans Madison Kennedy, Matthew Josa, Jacob Pebley and Olympic gold medalist Anthony Ervin.

Josa kicked things off for the Americans with a win in the men’s 100m butterfly event. His mark of 50.99 scorched the field, which included a couple of other non-Italians. In fact, the podium in this sprint fly event wound up being all foreign, as Germany’s Marius Kusch and Brazil’s Fernando Da Silva clinched silver and bronze in times of 51.89 and 52.61, respectively. For Josa, he’ll soon be continuing his NCAA career by competing for Cal come the spring semester.

2016 Olympian and Cal swimmer Jacob Pebley scored a silver in Genoa, finishing as one of only two swimmers under the 52-second mark in the men’s 100m backstroke. Home country athlete Lorenzo Mora claimed the win in 51.47, while Pebley touched shortly behind in 51.71.

As a change-up from his pet backstroke events, Pebley also made waves in the 100m freestyle race this meet. He wound up with silver in the sprint free event, clocking a time of 49.16 to Italian Allessandro Miressi‘s 49.11. Germany’s Kusch put his name in the medal mix again, earning bronze in the race with a time of 49.41.

For Ervin’s part, the ageless sprinter threw down a mighty 21.54 in the 50m freestyle to score a silver medal behind Italian Federico Bocchia. Bocchia raged to wall first in a mark of 21.39, just .01 of a second shy of the meet record standing at 21.38.

Domestic rivals Gabriele Detti and Gregorio Paltrinieri dueled in the men’s 400m freestyle, the only event for both Italian freestyle studs at this competition. Detti, the 400m and 1500m bronze medal winner in Rio, had the upper hand today in the shorter race today, earning a time of 3:42.82. That’s well off his 3:37.22 national record-setting swim his registered en route to claiming gold at last year’s Short Course European Championships, but a sign of where he’s at training-wise. For Paltrinieri, however, the outing scores as his 4th-fastest, with his swiftest resting with the 3:42.47 he notched in Indianapolis in 2015. Paltrinieri is the reigning Olympic Champion in the 1500m event, having won in Rio.

Italian breaststroker Fabio Scozzoli won the men’s 50m breaststroke in a new championship record time today. The 50/100 SCM breaststroke national record holder touched in 26.40 in the sprint event, beating out the field and the old championship record of 26.60. He followed that performance up with a second place finish in the 100m breast event, where his time of 58.55 finished behind countrymate Nicolo Martinenghi, who won in 58.22.

Kennedy was relatively quiet on the women’s side, scoring a second place finish in the splash n’ dash and third in the 100m free race. In the former, Kennedy was one of only two sub-25-second swimmers, throwing down a 24.32 behind Italy’s Erika Ferraioli. Ferraioli took the race in 24.23, with both swimmers dipping beneath the previous meet record of 24.39.

The 100m freestyle saw French mainstay Charlotte Bonnet take the win in 53.15, while Ferraioli claimed silver in 54.36 and Kennedy bronze in 54.81. Bonnet also made her mark on the meet winning the women’s 100m IM event, crushing the previous meet record in the process. The French swimmer touched in 1:00.18, lighting the old record of 1:03.73 on fire. Her outing today ranks as the 25-year-old’s 4th fastest of her career.

The majority of the field is now headed to Bolzano, Italy, for the Bolzano International Swim Meeting slated for November 5th and 6th.

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paolo
7 years ago

On Italian side, very promising performance from Martinenghi (born in 1999) considering his very weak turns and underwaters.

Sven
7 years ago

Glad to see Madison Kennedy still at it. I was sad she didn’t make the Rio team and worried that she might retire.

Hswimmer
Reply to  Sven
7 years ago

She said she had no intentions of retiring and she would keep swimming until she felt like she wasn’t having fun doing it.

Uberfan
7 years ago

50.99 not bad at all

JP Input is too short
7 years ago

A little fun coincidence: Josa transferred to Cal from DII Queens in Charlotte, NC. Kusch was announced as a Queen’s commit and shows up on their roster so he may be swimming college next semester as well.

May be some good DII fly races this year between Kusch, teammate Pijulet and Jay Kim (46.9/1:42.9 in 2011) from Drury back.

About Retta Race

Retta Race

Former Masters swimmer and coach Loretta (Retta) thrives on a non-stop but productive schedule. Nowadays, that includes having just earned her MBA while working full-time in IT while owning French 75 Boutique while also providing swimming insight for BBC.

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