2021 FINA SHORT COURSE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Thursday, December 16th – Tuesday, December 21st
- Etihad Arena, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
- SCM (25m)
- Prize Money
- Meet Site
- Psych Sheet
- Live Results
- Day 1 Finals Start Lists
Canada’s Maggie MacNeil has scratched the semifinals of the women’s 100 backstroke after posting the 10th-fastest time in the event prelims on Thursday morning.
MacNeil has long flirted with this race as a complement to her specialty, the sprint butterfly races, but has ultimately shied away from it at major international meets. In short course, though, she took a flier on the swim, as a day 1 warmup, in prelims, and swam 57.42. With her countrymate Kylie Masse being 3rd-fastest in prelims in 56.12, MacNeil dropped the semifinals and will instead focus on Canada’s 400 free relay in the finals session.
MacNeil has been as fast as 56.16 in the 100 back in short course, so a medal was not out-of-the-question coming into the meet.
She was the only scratch for the first finals session of the meet. There were a mountain of disqualifications and no-shows in prelims on Thursday, indicating some problems with COVID-19 (certain federations were entirely absent).
Swimoffs
Belgium’s Florine Gaspard beat out Great Britain’s Molly Renshaw in the women’s 50 breast swim-off to advance to the semifinal. Gaspard is the Belgian Record holder in the event at 29.70; she was faster in the swimoff (30.11) than she was on the prelims (30.45), and that means she still has a chance to final in the race – top 8 in the heats took exactly 30.11.
In the men’s 100 back swimoff, France’s Yohann Ndoye Brouard beat out Norway’s Markus Lie 51.09-51.21. Ndoye-Brouard beat Lie via the back-half of his race, where he was three-tenths faster than his opponent.
Just like in the women’s swim-off, both swimmers were faster than they were in the original prelims.
