On the day 3 prelims of the 2011 FINA Youth World Championships, we saw yet another Meet Record go down, and several other get serious scares.
The girls 200 backstroke might be progressing faster than any event in the world right now. Japan’s Miyu Otsuka took the top seed in 2:11.45, but the UK’s Karley Mann, the Ukraine’s Daryna Zevina (who won the 100 and was 4th at World’s in this 200), Canada’s Brittany MacLean, the other Brit Georgia Hohmann, and Australia’s Mikkayla Sheridan all cleared the old meet record. That mark previously stood at 2:12.56 by Zuzanna Mazurek of Poland. In other words, it nearly took a meet record to even make the final in this race. China’s Yuanhui Fu and the United States’ Kendyl Stewart were the only two finalists who didn’t clear the mark.
In the girls 100 breaststroke, Japan’s Kanako Watanabe took the top seed in 1:09.48. That’s close to her career-best swim from the Japan Open, though we’re still waiting to see her 200 breaststroke, where she’s ranked 3rd in the world. Russia’s Irina Novikova and Italy’s Lisa Fissneider are also top-3 seeds in 1:09-high’s.
In the boys 50 free, we saw the first individual swim from Australia’s Cameron McEvoy, who already has set the Meet Record with two blazing 400 free relay leadoff swims. He’s nowhere near this meet record yet, though he’ll have two more rounds in which to do it. Greece’s Kristian Gkolomeev took the 2nd seed in 23.00, and the Ukraine’s Volodymyr Sushcyk took 3rd in 23.14. As a 50, this will be a prelims-semis-finals race, though, so expect the speed to ramp up this evening. The United States’ Kyle Darmody (23.41) and Harrison Wagner (23.46) qualified 7th and 8th.
South Africa’s budding butterfly star Vanessa Mohr, only 16, took top seed honors in the girls 50 fly prelim at 26.84, which is within a tenth of the Meet Record. France’s Justine Bruno went a best-time for 2nd in 27.04.
Germany’s Christian Diener was easily the fastest in the morning heats of the boys 50 backstroke in 25.68, which is off of his top-30 ranked swim from European Juniors, where he swept the backstroke races. If he can match that time in the later rounds, he will have himself a Meet Record in this race.
Full day 3 prelims results can be seen here. Finals begin tonight at 6 PM Lima time, which is equivalent to United States Central Time.
