Sjöström again fast in prelims at Mare Nostrum Tour in Barcelona

2017 MARE NOSTRUM TOUR – BARCELONA

The 2017 World Championships will start in Budapest in about 5 weeks and the international swim stars bring themselves into the right mood for fast races: Again Sarah Sjöström set a new meet record at the Mare Nostrum Tour in yesterday’s finals in the 50m freestyle with a sub-24 second time: she clocked 23,96 – only 0,13 seconds slower than her personal best time. Russia’s Yuliya Efimova showed a 2017 world-leading time of 2:19.83 in the 200m breaststroke in yesterday’s final – that falls just 0.72 shy of the 2:19.11 world record held by Rikke Pedersen.

Sarah Sjöström was incredibly fast for an early morning swim in the 50m butterfly, she set the swiftest time in prelims in 25,51, only she herself was faster during this competitive season. Ranomi Kromowidjojo (NED) touched with the second best time in 26,03 ahead of Penny Oleksiak (CAN) in 26,33.

Two women were sub 54 seconds in the 100m free: Of course Sarah Sjöström in 53,35 and Australia’s Cate Campbell in 53,85 – both are able to swim about one second faster, they are the two fastest women in this season.

The breaststroke ladies demonstrated relaxed two lanes, Jennie Johansson (SWE) finished her race with the quickest result (1:07,35) followed by Russia’s Yulia Efimova in 1:07,41.

20-year old Anton Chupkov (RUS) managed to dip under 2:10 in the 200m breaststroke: he was clocked at 2:09,99.

The eight A-finalists in the men’s 100m butterfly lie in a time span of 0.48 seconds, Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh was the fastest in 53.53.

Katinka Hosszu sets the fastest time in the 200 IM in 2:13,63. Sometimes it is not easy even for a world class IM swimmer like Hannah Miley (GBR) to make it into an A-final: She ranks 9th after prelims in 2:18,12, her season-best performance are 2:11,75.

Also fastest swimmers into the finals are:

50m backstroke women, Emily Seebohm (AUS), 28,42 (100m backstroke on Tuesday in 58,99 – 58,63 is her season best time)
50m breastroke men, Kirill Prigoda (UKR), 27,45 (Chupkov won the 100m yesterday in 59,39)
400m IM men, Tomas Elliott (AUS), 4:28,75
100m backstroke men, Mitch Larkin (AUS), 55,17
50m freestyle men, Bruno Fratus (BRA), 22,36
200m backstroke women, Emily Seebohm (AUS) 2:12,47
200m butterfly women, An Sehyeon (South Corea), 2:10,59
200m freestyle men, Aleksandr Krasnyhk (RUS), 1:48,35
400m freestyle women: Veronika Popova (RUS), 4:11,13

 

 

 

In This Story

33
Leave a Reply

Subscribe
Notify of

33 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
SwimJon
6 years ago

Watching her race reminds me of Popov. The least hurried but the fastest. Even in the 50 she just…dives in and grabs a hold of the water and moves ahead and never looks sprintish. And the 100… well.. both SS and C1 (until Rio) have this calmness… the others are sprinting, SS just leaves them behind… very Popovish

Prickle
6 years ago

Cate Campbell was only once under 52.33 and that was a world record. That gives us some idea of how fast is this in-season 52.28 of Sarah Sjostrom. My real concern is that Sarah stays at least at this form for five more weeks and doesn’t get burned out before WC.
The more I think of what Sjostrom is doing at this meet the more I’m inclined to think that this meet was of special importance to her where with the only one exception of Simone Manuel she races against the strongest field one can gather. I hope it is still her in-season form and something even more spectacular awaits for us in July.

Prickle
6 years ago

Can’t wait to see the video of Sarah Sjostrom’s dominance of two body length over the world record holder at such a short discipline (in distance and time) as 100 free.

Prickle
6 years ago

What a secret word has Johan Wallberg whispered in Sarah’s ear to make of her completely different swimmer just in three months?

Rafael
Reply to  Prickle
6 years ago

Forget 200 and relays just sprint sprint sprint

Joe
Reply to  Rafael
6 years ago

“Oh, and try to jump into the pool a little quicker”

SwimJon
Reply to  Prickle
6 years ago

And when she gets her underwater/turns together…

SwimJon
6 years ago

52.28 in the 100…wow…

john26
Reply to  SwimJon
6 years ago

…Finally, I’ve been waiting for this swim from her for years

ellie
Reply to  SwimJon
6 years ago

Insane! Curious whether she can take down Cate’s record this year.

commonwombat
Reply to  ellie
6 years ago

If she’s ever going to take that and/or the 50fr WR, then this next couple of months look to be her peak “window of opportunity”. Whilst she’s been at a level of consistent excellent in sprint freestyle for a number of years, we are now seeing the actual significant time drops that put her within range.

Joe
Reply to  commonwombat
6 years ago

Don’t know if it’s the peak window, but it’s a window for sure. Remember that she took roughly five months off after the Olympics. She’s been doing this freestyle focus for what, half a year? Small changes can make big differences but I would still assume even more work could be done. In the 50 freestyle yesterday Kromowidjojo still looked to be a decent step ahead at the start.

100 free? Who knows. It’s clear that Sarah should make her front half speed more prominent at least, because she can back it up.

Wallaby
6 years ago

Sjöström 24.76 in the 50 fly finals!

john26
6 years ago

Let the record show that C1 hasn’t beaten Sjostrom in the 100m since 2013 (at least in major competition), someone could probably correct me on European meets.

commomwombat
Reply to  john26
6 years ago

Well, if you’re talking finals then you’ve prob got a sound case. However, if you’re taking prelims/semi-finals then C1 beat her in SF2 in Rio

Prickle
Reply to  john26
6 years ago

You are correct. During last four years Cate Campbell has never beaten Sarah Sjostrom in face-off race. But it will be fair to mention that at the time of those competitions Cate had some health issues. I’m not sure if she has it or not at this meet.

Prickle
6 years ago

🙂 🙂 Sarah Snostrom gained a lot of respect during last years. To the level that swimswam.com uses her native alphabet when typing her name. Such an honor wasn’t awarded to any other swimmer who’s alphabet is different from English one (Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Greek, Spanish etc) 🙂 🙂

Ex Quaker
Reply to  Prickle
6 years ago

In all fairness, names do need to be readable for English-speaking swim fans on a swimming website in English.

Prickle
Reply to  Ex Quaker
6 years ago

Of course you are right but I feel some discomfort when I cannot be as cool as Daniela Kapser just because the software on my device doesn’t have this special character.
Look how casually and uninteresting it looks in my version compare to Daniela’s one: Sjostrom. Something mysterious from overseas disappears immediately. 🙂

Joe
Reply to  Prickle
6 years ago

Though our keyboards have it as a character, umlauts can still be written without it by commandos on any keyboard.. 🙂

Ken
Reply to  Prickle
6 years ago

On windows computors, press Alt while typing 148 on the numeric keybord = ö