After seeing the Russian 4 x 100 freestyle win in dominating fashion, it was predictable that the 100 freestyle would be owned by Russian swimmers, which was exactly what happened with Vlad Morozov and Nikita Lobintsev going one, two in the individual event. Morozov who has a breakout year, first at the World Short Course Championships where he won the both the 50 and 100 freestyle, than at the NCAA Championships where he won the 50 and 100 yard freestyle events, setting a NCAA record of 40.76 in the 100 and now at the World University Games where he took the 100 freestyle in a time of 47.62, the second fastest time in the world this year.
Morozov took the first 50 meters out in a blazing 22.66 finishing with a second 50 split of 24.96, breaking the games record of 47.98 set by his Russian teammate Andrey Grechin who lead off the 4 x 100 freestyle relay.
Lobintsev finished second posting a time of 48.54. For the second time in the competition Lobintsev finishes as the runner up to a fellow countryman. Earlier in the competition he earned a silver in the 200 freestyle behind Danila Izotov.
Italian Michel Santucci finished third in a time of 49.30, collecting Italy’s ninth bronze of the competition.
Australian Andrew Abood was fourth in a time of 49.36, Italian Lorenzo Benatti was fifth in a time of 49.78, Katsumi Nakamura was sixth in a time of 49.81, American Michael Wynalda was seventh in a time of 49.93 and Pjotr Degtjarjov of Estonian was eighth in a time of 50.19.
Men’s 800 freestyle
In the men’s 1500 freestyle Kohei Yamamoto of Japan lead for the majority of the first 750 meters, but eventually got run down and overtaken by American Sean Ryan, who won the event in a time of 14:57.33. In the 800 freestyle Yamamoto made sure that we didn’t see that happen again. At the 400 meter mark the Japanese swimmer turned first in a time of 3:54.82, half a second ahead of Ukrainian Sergii Frolov, who finished third in the 1500 freestyle and almost two seconds ahead of Ryan.
Yamamoto swam an extremely strong second 400 meters splitting 3:55.14 to win the event in a new season’s best time of 7:49.96, which is currently the seventh fastest time in the world this year.
Frolov finished second in a time of 7:51.02, which is a lifetime best. After finishing outside of the medals with a disappointing 1500 freestyle Canadian Eric Hedlin collected his country’s first medal in a men’s event at the games, finishing third in a time of 7:53.78.
Ryan finished fourth in a time of 7:55.67.
Russian Evgeny Kulikov was fifth in a time of 7:56.78, Fumiya Hidaka of Japan was sixth in a time of 7:59.31, American Ryan Feeley was seventh in a time of 8:04.04 just ahead of Russian Evgeny Eliseev who finished eighth in a time of 8:04.05.
Women’s 200 breaststroke
Russian Yulia Efimova took the women’s 200 breaststroke in a season’s best time of 2:24.10, which is currently the fifth ranked time in the world this year. Efimova, who won the 100 breaststroke earlier in the meet in a time of 1:05.48, which ranks second in the world, had a great second half where she was up to the task of catching and passing American Laura Sogar who led at the 100 mark of the race going out in a time of 1:09.09.
Efimova whose split a 1:10.41 at the 100 finished finished the second half of the race in a time of 1:13.69, having more then enough speed to overtake the American who finished second in a time of 2:25.33. Mio Motegi of Japan finished third in a time of 2:25.73.
Italian Giulia de Ascentis was fourth in a time of 2:27.10, Korean Suyeon Back was fifth in a time of 2:27.25, Canadian Tera Van Beilen was sixth in a time of 2:27.64, Satori Hosokoshi was seventh in a time of 2:28.64 and American Andrea Kropp finished eighth in a time of 2:29.29.
Women’s 100 butterfly
Canadian Katerine Savard, who earlier in the competition finished second in the 50 butterfly, setting a new Canadian record of 26.05, won the 100 butterfly in a time of 57.63. Savard has had a great season setting both the 50 (26.05) and 100 butterfly (57.40) Canadian records and is currently ranked second in the world with a season’s best time of 57.40.
With the win she collected Canada’s first gold of the competition and broke the WUG record of 57.86 set by Lu Ying of China.
The race for second was exciting with Fan Guo of China out touching Nao Kobayashi of Japan by one one-hundredth of a second. Guo touched in a time of 58.98 while Kobayashi posted a time of 58.99.
Russian Darya Tsvetkova finished fourth in a time of 59.10, Italian Elena di Liddo finished fifth in a time of 59.38, Katarina Listopadova of Slovakia finished sixth in a time of 59.57, Austrian Birgit Koschischek finished seventh in a time of 59.96 and American Kelsey Floyd finished eighth in a time of 1:00.43.
Semi-Finals
Women’s 200 freestyle
Russia’s Veronika Popova took the top seed in the women’s 200 free in 1:58.72, though she still sits shy of the time with which her young countrymate Maria Baklakova won the European Junior Championship in Poznan a day prior. Sitting behind her is a very strong field of swimmers, including 2012 Olympic finalist Caitlin McClatchey (1:58.99), American Chelsea Chentault (1:59.46), Canadian Brittany MacLean (1:59.68), and the 2nd British swimmer Rebecca Turner (1:59.86).
Also sneaking into the A-Final is American Megan Romano with a 2:00.45, and if there’s one thing we know about Romano, it’s that if she has a lane, she has a chance at a medal.
Men’s 100 butterfly
Belarus’ Yauhen Tsurkin took the top seed in the men’s 100 fly in 51.75, which cuts three-tenths of a second off of his National Record. That swim ranks him 7th in the world this year. Poland’s Pawel Korzeniowski, recovering from some poor swims earlier in the meet, was a 52.20 for the 2nd seed, and American Jack Conger swam a personal best of 52.51 for 3rd headed toward finals.
American-trained Swiss butterflier Nico van Duijn (52.69) also made the finals, though Australia’s Daniel Lester from Wisconsin (52.81) and American Kyler Van Swol from Minnesota (52.80) did not.
Women’s 50 backstroke
Shortly thereafter, Tsurkin’s countrymate Aliaksandra Herasimenia took the top seed in the women’s 50 back in 28.35 ahead of Russia’s Anastasia Zueva and Australia’s Madison Wilson.
American Cindy Tran took 4th in 28.72
Men’s 200 backstroke
Japan’s Yuki Shirai took the top seed in the men’s 200 backstroke, but 2nd behind him (as the two separated from most of the field) was American Jack Conger in 1:57.82. Swimming about half-an-hour apart, Conger handled the double very well, but in Monday’s finals session, his races could be bunched even more closely together with only the women’s 50 backstroke and a single medal ceremony separating the two finals.
Two other Americans, Jacob Pebley (1:58.71) and Eric Ress (1:58.77 – a dual citizen representing France) are 3rd and 4th.
Men’s 50 breaststroke
Russia’s Vlad Morozov took the top seed in the men’s 50 breaststroke, showing off his versatility (and perhaps a bit of endurance on a second swim of the session) in 27.34.That’s a best time for him, and ranks him 6th in the world this year.
South Africa’s Giulio Zorzi, training partner of Cameron van der Burgh, took the 2nd seed in 27.67, and Italian Andrea Toniato was 3rd in 27.80.
Mike Alexandrov, the only American swimmer to get out of prelims, took 6th and moved on to the finals in 27.94.
| Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
| Russia | 10 | 5 | 0 | 15 |
| Australia | 4 | 2 | 2 | 8 |
| United States | 3 | 7 | 4 | 14 |
| Japan | 3 | 5 | 5 | 13 |
| Belarus | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Ukraine | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
| Canada | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 |
| Hungary | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Ireland | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| China | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Italy | 0 | 0 | 9 | 9 |
| Poland | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Greece | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Complete results can be found here
While Vlad’s performances this year have been astounding, remember that just last year Vlad looked good all year long, then when he got to the NCAA final where everyone was just as fast, he got caught up in their waves and had a bad race. Granted, I wasn’t on deck at the 2012 NCAA meet, so I don’t know what personally happened to Vlad in that 100 free. But, I do wonder whether or not he’ll be able to go 47.6 with the big guys around him thrashing around.
Psycho Dad –
“””””Dutchwomen, I do not agree they “MUST” and I do not agree that doing straight arm makes you “taller.” You can swim high elbow and be as tall as you want (stretching you arm and now entering water until stretched all the way).
>length first, tempo second.
If so, how do you explain Morozov? Unless you think swimming straight arm makes you 7’1” tall?”””””
Simple physics.
A wheel with a radius of 6 will go further and faster than a wheel with a radius of 4 when pushed with the same force. Think of the shoulder as a the center of the circle and the arm as the radius. The only way for… Read more »
Wow, quite a reply. Thanks.
All I am saying is the thing that matters is how much water you move and how much you pull your upper body forward. Long catch can be done with high elbow as good as it can with straight arm stroke. You can argue that straight arm requires more energy and not really recommended – I bet that is the reason Nathan is using it for last 10 yards only.
>Show me a short man who excels in sprint freestyle that defies the laws of physics.
Eamon Sullivan?
You apparently aren’t reading my posts.
I said –
“”””Name a swimmer who has excelled in the sprints who was short…they either did one of two things, 99% of the time –
1. Swam with a HUGE stroke and got as much length as possible out of said stroke, or
2. Had an unbelievably high tempo”””
These are the laws of physics I am talking about here –
“”Show me a short man who excels in sprint freestyle that defies the laws of physics””
Sullivan proves my point exactly.
Watch…Then watch at the 3:00 mark –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F8vSyq2VEg
Sullivan is the definition of what I am talking… Read more »
Eamon Sulivan is 6’3″. He looks short beside Target, Magnussen and Roberts, all of whom are 6’5″ or better.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this point here –
“””Long catch can be done with high elbow as good as it can with straight arm stroke.”””
I don’t think there is anyway, during a high elbow, classic hip driven stroke, to place the arm in the water as far out as you can during a straight arm stroke WITHOUT sliding the hand forward underwater. In the straight arm you pretty much have a big paddlehweel going through the water, with little to no sliding out of the hand once it enters…more like straight down to the catch. Not sure that is possible with a high elbow, hip driven stroke.
Take a Cullen Jones for example…classic… Read more »
Completely agree that short sprinters need to compensate their height with either a longer stroke radius (full arm recovery/windmill/full body/high hand recovery – call it whaterver,) and/or a much higher tempo than their taller counterparts.
We’ve seen some of the tall sprinters attempt this approach with some success. Nathan Adrian can only acheive this for the final 5 meters in a 100 LCM race as a last ditch effort, and Florent Manadu has success with both a big stroke and high tempo over a 50 but can’t do the 100 effectively.
The very tall basketball types that you mention, 7′ or over, like a Tim Duncan or a Cody Zeller have long twitch muscle fiber and would not carry… Read more »
> Ervin doesn’t swim big and thus needs his high tempo.
Someone has filmed Ervin’s 50m in Tokyo World Cup from a front angle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJMcdpe6Pew
For me this gives a sense of swimming big, even though his arms aren’t fully extended.
In his interviews he said he wanted to represent States since he didn’t know whether RUS Swimming is interested in him. He wanted to perform at Olympics and wasn’t sure. But Russian Swimming officials cleared it up and settled on this issue, he had a convo with a chief coach of Russian team and now RS supports him. There’s another reason why he’s not going to switch the country: he has no equal rivals in the team and easily can make any major meet while he definitely could not make Worlds in 50s if he represented US. 50s is a great field in USA team, a lot of tough rivals. Vladimir posted 21.81 in 50 free at Rus Trials.
The American 100 times were slower than the winning times by the under 20’s at the Los Angeles Invitational a couple weeks ago. What gives?
Meaning there’s no currently fast 100 american freestyler who are still in college.
I thought we have already established during the trials where there was not one single college swimmer in the men 100 free final (although there was a 17b yo Caeleb Dressel)
There were several excellent current college sprinters who chose to not participate in World Championship trials. A couple of them showed up for the LA Invitational and more will show up for the US Open. The 19 year old winner of LA Invitational 50 Free at 22.68 would have made top 8 at World Championship Trials and is currently in college.
100 Free winner at LA Invitational is young collegiate swimmer and faster sub 50 time than the US swimmers at WUGs.
Wow great swim and puts even more pressure on for that event!
Romano and Chenault relays were fantastic to hold the russians for second . They came from nowhere .
Obligatory Megan Romano mention for the benefit of SwimSwammers? (winks)
She did play it dangerously close today in just narrowly squeaking thru to the 200 finals!
I saw that too ! She was not so looking good at the end of that 200 free session …yikes !
Ah, Romano. I like her freestyle technique. I’d say it’s very similar to Cate Campbell. There is potential – and over 6 ft of it.
Can one say that a lead is a half of the body lenght if only your upper body leads while your toes are still side by side with a swimmer next to you?
Ha. Every time Romano & relays are mentioned in Swimswam in the same sentence , I. Get off the couch & do an abs set.
I am getting really good & lookin for harder sets. I easily completed Gregor Taits ‘ Ab Challenge ( check twitter) .
If you are going to do a Romano / relay combo – please suggest an Ab exercise also!
Try a Gary Player ab workout.
What’s the stat? No male under 6’3″ has won a gold medal (or maybe any medal??) in the 100 free Olympics since 1972?? or something crazy like that
Ambrose “Rowdy” Gaines is only 6’1″ and he won in 1984.
maybe Rowdy was the one that gave me the stat. it was something crazy like that though. obviously I got it wrong.
His start was very good too . Lobintzev was allready behind after 15 meters ……
He has crazy starts and crazy turns!
thanks for the video post !!!
It’s my pleasure.