Hosszu & Le Clos Wrap Up Multiple Wins, Sjostrom WR On Day 1 In Moscow

2017 FINA WORLD CUP MOSCOW

• Wednesday, August 2nd & Thursday, August 3rd
• JSC Olympisky Sports Complex, Moscow
• SCM
• World Cup Preview
• Meet Site
• Live Stream (country-limited)
• Day 1 Prelims Recap
• Start Lists/Results

We reported how day 1 finals in Moscow saw one World Record go down in the form of Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom firing off a new 50 short course mark of 23.10.  That swim simply continued the speedster’s reign from the World Championships in Budapest where the Swede knocked down the long course 50 freestyle and 100 freestyle world records. The 23-year-old Olympic champion now holds an amazing 7 world records across both short and long course formats.

Sjostrom scored a silver here in Moscow earlier in the session as well. Battling it out with Hungary’s Iron Lady and newly-minted 5-time 2017 World Championship medalist in Katinka Hosszu, Sjostrom settled for silver in the 100m IM in a time of 57.10. Although Sjostrom led by a slim .09 margin at the 50m, Hosszu took over the lead with a solid breaststroke leg to ultimately strike gold in a winning time of 57.02.

Hosszu owns the WR in the 100m IM event short course with the time of 56.67 she set in Netanya, Israel in 2015. But with her performance today, Sjostrom now checks-in as the 2nd fastest performer of all-time, overtaking Australia’s Alicia Coutts.

Hosszu also put on a show in the 100m backstroke event, clocking the only sub-56 mark of the field. Although she went a smidge slower than her 55.52 morning outing, touching in 55.65 for the win, Hosszu was still within half a second of the Shiho Sakai’s championship record of 55.23 from 2009.

Along with her 2 golds, Hosszu also earned a silver in the women’s 200m fly event. Holding the top seed headed into tonight’s final with her morning swim of 2:02.75, Hosszu ultimately notched a final time of 2:05.46 to fall short of Germany’s Franziska Hentke and her winning mark of 2:03.43. Spain’s gold medalist in Budapest in this event, Mireia Belmonte, wound up 3rd in 2:05.75.

We’re used to see Hosszu enter a monster schedule at these World Cup events, however, the Iron Lady will only be able to make one splash tomorrow in the 200m IM due to the fact that she’s already swum 3 races here. The new FINA rule dictates that swimmers can only race 4 individual events per leg.

Another medalist from Budapest, 200m freestyle gold medal winner Federica Pellegrini of Italy, wrapped up the women’s 400m freestyle after leading wire-to-wire. Her time of 3:57.80 was enough to beat out Belmonte’s mark of 3:58.24.

Chad Le Clos opted out of swimming prelims, but was granted automatic placement into finals since he earned Olympic medals in both of his day 1 events, the 200m freestyle and 100m butterfly. In the former, Le Clos fought in a nine person race to claim gold by just .15 over Russian World Championship medalist Aleksandr Krasnykh, who also opted out of the prelim swim. Le Clos clocked 1:42.54 to narrowly step on top of the podium ahead of Krasnykh’s 1:52.69.

Le Clos also did some damage to the 100 fly field, where he split 22.89/26.24 to take gold in 49.13. Two other men were also sub-50 tonight in Great Britain’s Adam Barrett and America’s Tom Shields, who touched in 49.45 and 49.55 for silver and bronze, respectively. Shields was another athlete who opted out of swimming the prelims, yet was slotted a spot in the final due his having been a World Championships medalist in the event last year.

Additional Day 1 Winners:

• Jamaica’s Alia Atkinson improved upon her 29.73 morning swim to snag gold in 29.51. Ruta Meilutyte of Lithuania was right behind in 29.51. Russia’s Yuliya Efimova had claimed the 5th seed after prelims, but did not race tonight.
• The host country’s Kirill Prigoda nailed the 200m breaststroke race, winning by over 1 1/2 seconds with a time of 2:02.16.
• Belarusian backstroker Pavel Sankovich was tonight’s 50m backstroke winner, taking the event in 23.20.
• Germany’s Philip Heintz took the men’s 400m IM in 4:04.49.
• The Russian quartet of Vladimir Morozov (23.59), Prigoda (25.49), Svetlana Chimrova (25.50) and Veronika Popova (24.52) combined to take the mixed 4x50m medley relay crown in a collective time of 1:39.10.