2015 FINA Junior World Championships: Day 2 Finals Photo Vault

As action continues at the 2015 FINA World Junior Championships in Singapore, local photographer Adrian Seetho is sharing with us an on-deck look at the championship meet.

Seetho was on deck for all the excitement of day 2’s finals session, and snapped some great shots of night’s biggest moments.

All photos are courtesy of Adrian Seetho/Singapore Swimming Association. You can find more of Adrian’s photos on the Singapore Swimming Association’s Facebook page here.

Night 2 saw two junior world records fall. We’ve republished our event recaps of those two races below. You can find our full session recap here.

WOMEN’S 100M BACKSTROKE – FINAL

WR: 58.12 Gemma Spofforth (GBR) 28 JUL 2009 Rome (ITA)
~~CR: 59.83 Minna Atherton (AUS) 25 AUG 2015 Singapore (SIN)~~
~~WJ: 59.58 Claire Adams (USA) 07 AUG 2015 San Antonio (USA)~~ – **Tied**

Australia’s Minna Atherton continued her run of dominance in the girls 100 back, winning gold and tying the junior world record.

Swimming right next to the record-holder, Team USA’s Claire Adams, Atherton blasted a 59.58, leading the field by a good three tenths at the 50 turn. Atherton broke her own meet record from prelims and ultimately topped Adams by six tenths for gold.

Adams held on for silver, not quite able to get under a minute after setting the junior world record at U.S. Nationals a few weeks ago. Her 1:00.19 still beat out the rest of the field by a wide margin, though.

…

MIXED 4X100M MEDLEY RELAY – FINAL

WR: 3:41.71 Great Britain (GBR) 5 AUG 2015 Kazan (RUS)
~~CR: 3:48.89 Russia (RUS) 27 AUG 2013 Dubai (UAE)~~
~~WJ: 3:48.89 Russia (RUS) 27 AUG 2013 Dubai (UAE)~~

The mixed medley relay saw quite a bit more gamesmanship out of the relay lineups than we typically see in the mixed relays. The worldwide trend ever since FINA began including mixed relays in its world records and major competitions has been to front-load every relay, with male legs on the first two splits to get a lead and clean water for the final two female splits.

But teams really tailored their relay orders to their specific rosters in this medley, and it paid off handsomely for the teams that did. Russia led off with women’s backstroker Irina Prikhodko, freeing up their next two legs for individual gold medalists Anton Chupkov (100 breast) and Daniil Pakhomov (100 fly).

Prikhodko was 1:00.53 on her leadoff leg, second-best of the females but just 6th overall. But Chupkov, the junior world record-holder, dropped a field-best 59.74 on breast, and Pakhomov crushed a 51.33 on fly to rocket the team into first place.

Arina Openysheva closed in 54.25 as Russia destroyed the field, the junior world record and the meet record with a 3:45.85.

Also under the old junior world record were the Australians, who also mixed up their relay order from the typical male-male-female-female. Junior world record-holder Minna Atherton led off in 59.87 – just missing her world mark from earlier tonight – to put the team in fifth.

Matthew Wilson was 1:01.16 on the breaststroke and Lucia Lassman was a nice 59.56 on fly, but the team still ran 6th. But Kyle Chalmers came up with a giant anchor leg of 47.68 to propel the team to silver in 3:48.27.