2023 MARE NOSTRUM TOUR – BARCELONA
- Wednesday, May 17th & Thursday, May 18th
- Club Natació Sant Andreu, Barcelona, Spain
- LCM (50m)
- World Championships Qualifier
- Meet Central
- SwimSwam Preview
- Entries/Live Results
- Livestream
The second stop of the 2023 Mare Nostrum Tour got underway in Barcelona today with swimmers jockeying for the best lane positions entering tonight’s final.
This meet spans two days while the final stop of the Tour is set for Monaco this weekend on Saturday, May 20th and Sunday, May 21st.
As detailed in our preview, this Barcelona stop may be devoid of Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden, who took two titles last week in Canet; however, strong Canadian and Italian continents have joined the party for this stop, in addition to American Olympic champion Lydia Jacoby.
Fresh off the Pro Swim Series in Westmont last month, 19-year-old Jacoby wasted no time making her presence known, capturing the top seed in the women’s 100m breast.
Jacoby stopped the clock in a solid morning effort of 1:07.16 to lead Sweden’s Sophie Hansson and Japan’s Reona Aoki. Hanson will flank Jacoby for tonight’s final with an AM outing of 1:07.53 while Aoki will be on the other side with her time of 1:07.73.
Jacoby produced a time of 1:06.09 at Westmont to currently rank 6th in the world in this event.
Of note, Lithuanian Olympic champion Ruta Meilutyte missed the A-Final, posting a time of 1:08.91 to place 12th out of the heats.
Another American Michael Andrew did damage across 2 events, landing lane 4 in each.
First, the 24-year-old snagged the top spot in the 50m breast, scoring a heats time of 27.31. He’ll be facing a stacked field for this evening’s final, which includes Italians Federico Poggio, Simone Cerasuolo and Nicolo Martinenghi.
The reigning World Record holder in the men’s 100m back, Thomas Ceccon, also of Italy, secured the 6th seed in 28.14, a new lifetime best.
Next for Andrew was the 50m free where the Olympic medalist scored the fastest time of the morning in 22.14.
This time is already quicker than Andrew’s final effort of 22.22 which rendered him the silver medalist behind Frenchman Florent Manaudou last week in Canet.
Manaudou will try to follow up his 22.18-winning effort from that prior meet, registering a morning swim here of 22.30 as the 4th-seeded swimmer.
World champion Ben Proud of Great Britain missed the final, putting up a time of 22.69 for 12th place in his 2023 Mare Nostrum Tour debut.
Siobhan Haughey of Hong Kong staked her claim on the women’s 100m free, producing a heats swim of 53.53. That led Dutch ace Marrit Steenbergen by .20, with the European champion hitting 53.73 as the 2nd-seeded swimmer.
French racer Beryl Gastaldello and Aussie icon Cate Campbell wrangled up the 3rd and 4th seeds in respective swims of 54.34 and 54.54.
Missing the final was Anna Hopkin of Great Britain who hit 55.43 for 9th while Canadian Olympic multi-champion Penny Oleksiak placed 16th in 56.08. We noted how Oleksiak opted out of the Canadian World Championships Trials last month, still rehabilitating her kneed from 2022 surgery.
The men’s 200m free saw Katsuhiro Matsumoto clock a time of 1:47.70 as the top-seeded swimmer and the sole competitor to dip under 1:48 this morning.
The 26-year-old national record holder for Japan is already on track to beat his 1:47.33 outing which garnered him gold in Canet last week. Matsumoto currently ranks 5th in the world this season with his 1:44.98 from last month’s Japan Championships.
Additional Top Seeds
- It was Simona Kubova of the Czech Republic who snagged the top spot in the women’s 50m back, clocking 27.87. She’ll be chased by the likes of Danielle Hill of Ireland and Kira Toussaint of the Netherlands who are also among the finals field.
- Melanie Henique of France will try to upgrade her 50m fly silver from Canet to gold, hitting 25.75 as the top-seeded swimmer this morning. Japan’s bronze medalist Rikako Ikee and Canadian Olympic medalist Maggie MacNeil are also in the final, logging 25.22 and 26.56, respectively. Ikee earned her first international medal of bronze in Canet since having returned to competition after battling leukemia in 2019.
- Last week we saw an all-Japanese men’s 400m IM podium and we’re headed in that direction here. Riku Yamaguchi led the way with a morning result of 4:17.73 while teammates Tomoru Honda and So Ogata, last week’s gold medalist, are also in the mix.
- The men’s 100m back saw Swiss swimmer Theirry Bollin post a mark of 54.82 to earn the top seed. That’s already within range of his personal best of 54.31 from March of this year.
- Poland’s Laura Bernat and Spain’s Africa Zamorano each logged a result of 2:13.65 in this morning’s 200m back to share top seed honors.
- Watanabe registered a time of 2:13.21 to lead the men’s 200m breast this morning. He took the gold in Canet in a time of 2:10.08.
- Denmark’s Helena Bach produced a time of 2:11.53 to earn the #1 seed in the women’s 200m fly while Switzerland’s Olympic bronze medalist Noe Ponti led the men’s race in 52.54. Fellow Olympic medalist Federico Burdisso missed the final, placing 9th in 53.33 while Ceccon and Matteo Rivolta also placed out of the top 8.
- The women’s 200m IM saw Fantine Lesaffre produced a morning swim of 2:12.54, while Steenbergen doubled up on her 100m free, taking the 5th seed in this race in 2:13.53.
- Ella Jansen of Canada secured the pole position in the women’s 400m free in a time of 4:09.97. Jansen hit a time of 4:07.18 already this year to rank as her nation’s 5th fastest performer ever.
The best prelims swimmer ever
Michael Andrew ready to do some damage
Would be great if he broke 22 right now
Look at his FINA points. He wasn’t in Canet’s Top 20 swims which they award bonus prize money.
Your boy Michael Andrew saw his country’s top swimmer in an event that he himself swims (100 Fly) completely stop swimming for a number of months and his response was to start working on the 50 breaststroke and scratch the 100 Fly every meet.
No peaty he thinks he can win the 100br.
There was no Peaty last year and he didn’t even make the final in Budapest
Michael Andrew is a 50 meter specialist (50 BR, 50 FL, 50 FR of which the first two are not contested at the Summer Olympics) and has yet to medal in an individual 100 meter event at the World Aquatics Championships let alone the Summer Olympics. The Michael Andrew hype is not justified.
The whole world competes in the 50’s and they are a blast to watch.
The 50 FR is the only event scheduled at the Summer Olympics from the four (50 BK, 50 BR, 50 FL, 50 FR) contested at the World Aquatics Championships.
What hype is that? You mean from OTs? That’s kind of died off by now hasn’t it? If anything MA is unhyped now. Sort of a dark horse actually. No one really expects him to get faster or win a world title anymore so maybe that will motivate him going into these competitions.
Caleb Dressel’s problems are not Michael Andrew’s burden. At World Championships MA stepped up and swam 50.0 on fly on the relay. In fact at WC MA swam 100 fly fives times. It is possible that he is not going to swim the 100 fly because of the schedule of events.
The M 100 FL (Days 6 & 7) does not conflict with the M 100 BR (Days 1 & 2) or the M 200 IM (Days 4 & 5) at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships. In addition, Michael Andrew does not swim the M 4 x 100 FR-R scheduled on the first day of the aforementioned competition.
The 100 fly and 50 free are back to back
That’s so poor
Canadian news:
According to Devin Heroux from CBC Sports, Taylor Ruck broke her hand in a skateboarding accident last month. (Based on her last IG pictures, this seems to have happened during Canadian Trials while she was on her break).
https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6844985
I read that last night, talk about bad luck for Taylor. Hopefully she can recover in time for the Worlds. On another note Devin Heroux was in Atlanta to watch Summer McIntosh swim and had a good article/ interview with Brent Arckey. Pure speculation on my part but it sounded like it’s a real possibility that Summer will be racing all of her top events at the Worlds including the 200IM.
Already quicker than chalmers and zscook in 50 free and 50 breast
Right, because ZSC and Chalmers are both known for their 50s. 50 breast isn’t even an event lol.
Nice try, Tina
Zac is NOT a 50 (or even 100) elite breastroker and has Chalmers ever medaled in the 50 free at a big meet?
Michael Andrew beat Kyle Chalmers 3 times in 50 free head to head competition at Short Course Worlds. Kyle is definitely is not a 50 freestyler.
Vinay, Michael, Winny and now Diaz to add to the list.
I have to say, it is entertaining to open every article and see “(50 breast specialist) is way faster than (Australian swimmer who doesn’t even swim that event)”
Did Masse compete in Canet? I missed that