Our day 2 finals coverage is here.
All videos are courtesy of the Summer Universiade 2015 YouTube page, which you can find here.
WOMEN’S 100 BREAST SEMIS
Lillian King of the USA won the first semis heat in fairly dominating fashion. Her time of 1:07.21 was almost a second faster than the second-fastest woman in the heat, Natalia Ivaveeva (1:08.09). That swim puts her in the top 20 in the world this year.
In the second heat, Japan’s Mina Matsushima will get lane four in the finals after answering King’s swim with a 1:07.04, good for ninth-best in the world this year. She was followed by Jessica Hansen of Australia (1:07.48) and Fiona Doyle of Ireland (1:07.67). Martina Carraro of Italy also qualified for the final on the strength of a 1:08.07.
The final two qualifiers for tomorrow’s final will be Italy’s Ilaria Scarcella (1:08.36) and Ukraine’s Mariia Liver (1:08.38).
WOMEN’S 100 FREE SEMIS
Russia’s Rozaliya Nasretdinova dropped over a second from her preliminary time to win the first heat of the semis, and will go into tomorrow’s finals with with top seed time after swimming a 54.92 tonight. She was the only woman in either heat to break 55.0 this evening. Next in her heat was Shannon Vreeland of the USA (55.04). Vreeland’s teammate Abbey Weitzeil was actually slightly slower than her preliminary time, but her 55.25 was enough to win the second semifinal heat and give her the third seed for finals.
Japan’s Yui Yamane placed third in the first heat to qualify in fourth, her 55.26 just behind Weizteil’s time. The rest of tomorrow night’s final will consist of Katarina Listopadova of Slovakia (55.37), Russia’s Margaret Nesterova (55.37), Italy’s Laura Letrari (55.65), andAmi Matsuo of Australia (55.72).
With only one woman under 55.0, these swimmers are going to have to drop some time tomorrow if they want to make a dent in the world rankings. Currently the 25th-fastest time in the world this year is a 54.31.
MEN’S 200 IM SEMIS
In the first heat, Josh Prenot of the USA used great turns and the fastest breast split in the field to touch first in 1:59.21. Just behind him was Australia’s Justin James at 1:59.29. His teammate Travis Mahoney placed third in the heat (2:00.33). Mahoney was the only swimmer in this heat to split under 30 on the backstroke leg. All three will move through to finals. Dmitry Gorbunov of Russia finished fourth in the heat, eighth overall, and will make it to tomorrow’s finals (2:01.33).
Second verse, same as the first. Like his teammate, Kyle Whitaker gained ground on every turn and had the fastest breaststroke split by almost a second (employing a very narrow kick) to finish in 1:59.69. He was followed by Australia’s Max Litchfield (1:59.94) and Japan’s Takeharu Fujimori (2:00.19). His teammate Keita Sunama, who came in as the top seed, was in the lead for most of the race, but seemed to shut it down toward the end, finishing fourth in the heat, and sixth overall.
OMG! That looks like a straight up dolphin kick. He looks like he just continued his under waters and added a breaststroke pull. This should have been corrected by a coach long ago.
Most likely it’s been developed as a response to knee problems or an inability to turn the feet out far enough to get a real fix on the water. It’s a similar but more extreme version of what Yulia Efimova does. It brings in to question the interpretation and implementation of the breaststroke rules which basically state that the feet must be turned out. How far they must be turned out and how a poolside judge would measure that is what now needs to be answered. To my eyes what Kyle Whitaker does is not a breaststroke kick.
What is up with Kyle Whitaker’s breaststroke kick?
I was thinking the exact same thing, looks like he is doing the bare minimum to technically be ‘kicking’ breaststroke. Molly Hannis and Bruno Ortiz do the same thing, basically swimming butterfly during the breaststroke.