December 13, 2014, Barcelona, Spain – Having already won the 2000m butterfly and 400m individual medley events this morning, the name most associated with Spanish swimming superstardom, Mireia Belmonte, was at it again in today’s second session of the Spanish National Championships.
Belmonte fired off an astounding 3:55.36 in the women’s 400m freestyle event, to not only beat the competition by over 7 seconds, but to also clobber her old meet record of 3:58.45. Today’s time also surpasses the meet-record-setting mark she recently swam at Short Course World Championships in Doha, in which she won gold with a time of 3:55.76 (watch that impressive swim here).
Belmonte’s splits from today’s 400m freestyle race were as follows: 27.57, 29.56, 30.18, 29.94, 29.71, 29.85, 29.63, 28.92
Yesterday’s 1-2 finishers in the 200m freestyle, went 2-3 after Belmonte in this 400m contest. Melani Costa Shmid earned second place with a time of 4:02.53, while Beatriz Gomez Cortes rounded out today’s 400m top three in a time of 4:04.63.
The women’s 200m backstroke event was won by Duane Da Rocha Marce in a time of 2:05.64, just slightly faster than the 2:05.94 time she put up in the preliminary heats at Short Course Worlds to place her in 18th. Melanie Costa Shmid earned another second place finish at these Nationals, as she clocked a 2:06.18 for silver behind Marce.
In the final women’s event of the session, the C.N. Sabadell foursome of Erika Villaecija, Laura Rodriguez, Maria Alcaide, and Judit Ignacio combined to earn the women’s 4 x 200m free relay in a time of 8:02.05.
From the men’s perspective, Miguel Ortiz ran away with the 50m freestyle win today with a speedy 21.43, setting a new championship record in the process. Ortiz has had a successful National Championships thus far, winning yesterday’s 100m individual medley and 50m backstroke finals, as well as leading off his team’s 4 x 50 medley relay with the fastest backstroke split of the field (23.17) this morning.
In the men’s 400m individual medley, Alan Cabello’s winning time of 4:09.19 was off the national (4:05.09 from 2009) and championship records (4:06.27 from 2009) in his name; however, it was indeed enough to hold off the surging second-place-finisher, Marc Sanchez, who touched the wall just .14 behind in a time of 4:09.19.
Hugo Gonzalez took charge of the men’s 200m backstroke, winning by almost a second ahead of the rest of the field, as he clocked the winning time of 1:57.53, while the C.N. Sabadell men’s freestyle relay team took home the victory in 4 x 200m event in their time of 7:08.13 to close out the meet.
Competition continues tomorrow at 10am local time (4am Eastern) with timed finals of the men’s/women’s 100m freestyle, 100m breaststroke and 100m backstroke events.
Full Meet Results Here
