Belmonte Wins 6 Events, Vall Takes Down Spanish Record At Spring Open

Ungheria Katinka Hosszu

Spain’s 8-person strong World Championships roster was released this week after a considerably successful Spring Open where 1 national and 9 championship records went down.

Leading the way in terms of overall wins was the Spanish superstar Mireia Belmonte, who conquered 6 events to easily make the roster for Budapest. The 200m butterfly gold medalist in Rio scored the win in that event handily, notching a time of 2:08.17 to top the competitors by over 3 seconds. That time puts Belmonte within the world’s top 10, but towards the end of the list, far away from Germany’s Franziska Hentke’s world leading time of 2:06.84.

Belmonte struck again across the mid-distance/distance freestyles, where she collected a trifecta of wins across the 400m, 800m and 1500m. In the shortest distance, the national record holder scored a time of 4:06.77 to be positioned just outside the top 5 women in the world heading into Budapest. Her 800m freestyle gold medal in Spain came in a time of 8:29.33 for 7th in the world, but her big swim came in the 1500.

In the grueling race, Belmonte finished in 16:08.73, representing the 9th fastest time of the 26-year-old’s career. She also now sits atop the world rankings throne with the outing.

2016-2017 LCM WOMEN 1500 FREE

KatieUSA
LEDECKY
07/25
15.31.82
2Mireia
BELMONTE
ESP15.50.8907/25
3simona
QUADARELLA
ITA15.53.8607/25
4Delfina
PIGNATIELLO
ARG15.59.5108/27
5Sarah
KOHLER
GER15.59.8508/22
View Top 26»

The final two wins for Belmonte came in the 200m and 400m IM’s where she earned respective times of 2:12.52 and 4:35.01. Remember Belmonte won bronze in teh latter event at the 2016 Olympic Games behind Hosszu and American Maya DiRado.  Japan’s Yu Ohhashi nailed a monster time of 4:31.42 at the Japan Swim to overtake Belmonte as the world’s #1 and put her, Hosszu and others on notice heading into Budapest.

2016-2017 LCM WOMEN 400 IM

KatinkaHUN
HOSSZU
07/30
4.29.33
2yui
OHHASHI
JPN4.31.4204/14
3Mireia
BELMONTE
ESP4.32.1707/30
4Sydney
PICKREM
CAN4.32.8807/30
5Leah
SMITH
USA4.33.8606/29
View Top 26»

National record holder Jessica Vall was the other major star of the meet, sharing MVP honors with Belmonte. Heading into the Spring Open, Vall held the Spanish record in the women’s 100m breaststroke at a solid 1:06.81 from 2014. But the 28-year-old cranked out an even faster mark of 1:06.44 to rewrite the books. Splitting 31.68/34.67 Vall now ranks within the world’s top 5. She also won the 50m and 200m breaststroke events to complete the sweep.

2016-2017 LCM WOMEN 100 BREAST

LillyUSA
KING
07/25
1.04.13*WR
2Yuliya
EFIMOVA
RUS1.04.3607/24
3Katie
MEILI
USA1.05.0307/25
4Ruta
MEILUTYTE
LTU1.05.0607/24
5Hiroko
MAKINO
JPN1.06.0501/14
View Top 26»

Below is the 8-swimmer Spanish roster for the 2017 World Championships:

Mireia BELMONTE GARCÍA

Jessica VALL MONTERO

Jimena PÉREZ BLANCO

Hugo GONZÁLEZ DE OLIVEIRA

Antonio ARROYO PÉREZ

Miguel DURÁN NAVIA

Joan Ll. PONS RAMON

Africa ZAMORANO SANZ

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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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