2018 FINA WORLD CUP SERIES – KAZAN
- Friday, September 7th – Sunday, September 9th
- Aquatics Palace, Kazan, Russia
- LCM
- SwimSwam Meet Preview
- Day 1 Prelims Recap/Day 1 Finals Recap
- Day 2 Prelims Recap
- Entries List
- Results
After firing off a new World Cup Record last night in the women’s 50m freestyle, Swedish Olympic champion Sarah Sjostrom was back in the pool to wreak more havoc on day 2 in Kazan.
Sjostrom established herself as the woman to beat in the 50m butterfly with a morning swim of 25.76 to represent the only time of the prelims to dip under 26 seconds. However, the 25-year-old managed to find another engine to produce a wicked-fast 25.39 tonight to take the gold and also surpass the previous WC Record set by Denmark’s Jeanette Ottesen back in 2015.
Sjostrom has already been as fast as 25.16 this year, which is what she scored in Glasgow to take the 2018 European Championships title. She owns the World Record in this event with the 24.43 she clocked in Boras just over 4 years ago.
The 50m fly represented Sjostrom’s 2nd win of the night in Kazan after easily winning the women’s 200m freestyle by almost a full second, clocking 1:55.98 for the victory.
Finishing behind the Swede in tonight’s 50m fly race was Netherlands’ Ranomi Kromowidjojo in 26.09, followed by Belgium’s Kimberly Buys in 26.11.
By my calcs, Katinka has made $7k in prize money over 2 days of racing. That’s based on what I could find from last year’s schedule of, for first through sixth, $1500, 1000, 500, 400, 300, 200. Presumably has not changed–but correct me if I am wrong.
Good time from Sarah in the 50m fly considering she hade the 200m freestyle just 35 minutes before!
Of course, that could be flipped around and you could say her 1:55.98 in the 200 Free was relatively slow for her given that she was swimming it fresh and that she had given her races a mediocre effort in the morning.
I’d counter that and say considering the 200fr is no longer on her mind internationally, a 1.55.98 is mightily impressive. No other woman in history has gone sub 24 50fr and sub 1.57 200fr – Sjostrom just went 23.8/1.55.9 in 2 days.
You’re right in that noone else has mastered both the 50 and the 200 free like Sjöström has, but Ruck and Ikee are still very young so they might get there eventually. Below are probably the top-5 in that regard. Granted, Heemskerk is a bit of a stretch, but she’s still top-40 all time in the 50 free so she qualifies. 😉
Sarah Sjöström: 23.67 / 1:54.08
Taylor Ruck: 24.26 / 1:54.44
Rikako Ikee: 24.33 / 1:54.85
Emma McKeon: 24.34 / 1:54.83
Femke Heemskerk: 24.57 / 1:54.68
Sjostrom as having “mastered” the 50 Free/200 Free might be a bit of a stretch given that she has never won an Olympic or World Championship LCM gold in the 200 Free, and she has only won one 50M Free LCM gold in World Champs (and not Olympics).