Africa: Egyptian Men Complete Sweep Of Relay Record Books

2017 FINA WORLD SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS

The Egyptian men broke their national 4×100 medley relay record on the final day of the 2017 World Championships, completing a sweep of all three national relay records this week.

Youssef Abdalla, Youssef el-Kamash, Omar Eissa and Mohamed Samy combined to go 3:40.85, ripping up their old record of 3:41.97 set at Worlds in 2015. It was the bookends that really powered that record, with Abdalla outpacing the old backstroke split by a full second (55.37 to 56.55) and Samy topping the old anchor leg by half a second (49.34 to 49.85).

That’s the 9th national record set at this meet by Egyptian swimmers, 7 of them on the men’s side. Egypt has been rising steadily over the past several years, and are threatening to push South Africa for the position of most dominant team on the continent. Currently, South Africa has better top-end talent and better depth, but as Chad le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh age and pare down their schedules, it’ll be worth watching to see if the Egyptians can surpass the South African medal total at any major meets in the next few years.

Here’s a recap of all the Egyptian records set in the past 8 days:

AFRICAN RECAP

NATIONAL RECORDS, DAY 8

Final MEDALS/FINALISTS Table – AFRICA

TOTAL GOLD SILVER BRONZE
South Africa 2 1 0 1
Egypt 1 0 0 1
Total 3 1 0 2

Finalists:

  • Chad le Clos (South Africa) – Gold – 200 fly
  • Cameron van der Burgh (South Africa) – bronze – 50 breast
  • Farida Osman (Egypt) – bronze – 50 fly

Semifinalists:

  • Farida Osman (Egypt) – 9th place – 50 free
  • Oussama Sahnoune (Algeria) – 9th place – 100 free
  • Myles Brown (South Africa) – 14th – 200 free
  • Marwan el-Kamash (Egypt) – 16th – 200 free
  • Chad le Clos (South Africa) – 12th – 100 fly

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About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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