2018 FINA SHORT COURSE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Tuesday, December 11th – Sunday, December 16th
- Hangzhou, China
- Tennis Centre, Hangzhou Olympic & International Expo Center
- SCM (25m)
- Prelims: 9:30 am local, 8:30 pm ET / Finals: 7:00 pm* local, 6:00* am ET
- *The final night of finals will be one hour earlier, starting at 6:00 pm local and 5:00 am ET
- Live Results (Omega)
26-year-old Damien Joly lowered the French National Record in the preliminary heats of the men’s 1500 free, clocking a time of 14:28.25 to break Sebastien Rouault‘s mark of 14:30.58 set at the 2009 European Championships in Istanbul.
Joly came into the meet with a personal best of 14:32.75 from 2015, and with this swim he qualifies 2nd for tomorrow night’s final behind only Ukrainian Mykhailo Romanchuk (14:21.50). Joly outsprinted current world record holder Gregorio Paltrinieri (14:28.97) to take 2nd to Romanchuk in their heat.
Another Frenchman, David Aubry, nearly went under the old French Record as well in 14:30.72, qualifying for the final in 6th.
Joly was a 2016 Olympic finalist in this event, placing 7th, and most recently he placed 6th at the European Championships (LCM) this past summer.
It will be interesting to see whether or not he can back up his prelim swim in the final, as he has added from prelims to finals at the 2016 Olympics, 2017 SC Euros, and 2018 LC Euros. The biggest add came at the 2017 Euros where he went 14:34 in the heats, qualifying 2nd, before falling to 7th in the final in 14:43.
He now ranks 21st all-time in this event.
