2017 SWEDISH SUMMER NATIONALS
- June 30th, 2017 – July 4th, 2017
- Boras, Sweden
- Results
She’s been in headlines all summer; Sarah Sjöström continues to impress, having scored a new Swedish record in the 50 backstroke tonight in Boras, Sweden.
Winning the event easily at the Swedish Summer Nationals, Sjöström was 27.80 to break the Swedish record, which was her own 28.21 from January of 2016. That time now ranks her in a tie for 13th in the world. She initially posted a 28.39 in prelims to break her own 2015 meet record of 28.67.
Ida Lindborg was 2nd to Sjöström in an impressive 28.05, which was also under the old record.
Sjöström also grabbed a win in the 200 free, an event in which she won Olympic silver last year but has dropped for this summer’s Worlds in order to focus on the sprints. She’s certainly still in good form at that distance, evidenced by her 1:56.44 tonight in Boras which ranks 8th in the world this year.
Last but not least, Sjöström split a 52.48 on the 4×100 free relay at the end of the session. She split 25.26 with a flying start, coming home in 27.22. Other notable splits in that race included a 54.01 lead-off from Michelle Coleman on Spårvägen Simförening’s winning relay, a 54.98 lead-off from Louise Hansson on Helsingborgs Simsällskap’s third place relay, and two 55.6’s (with flying starts) from Nathalie and Ida Lindborg on Malmö Kappsimningsklubb’s second place relay.
Erik Persson knocked out his own 200 breast meet record, a 2:10.80 from 2016, with a 2:10.02 tonight. That’s well off of his best time from this spring’s Stockholm Open, a stellar 2:07.85 which stands as the national record. That meet did serve as a Worlds qualifying competition for Sweden, so it makes sense that Persson didn’t bring it all the way down for a big swim in Boras with Worlds just a few weeks out. Sophie Hansson was the winner in the women’s 200 breast, her 2:28.09 the only time under 2:30.
Another meet record went down at the hands of Victor Johansson in the 1500 free. He holds the NR at 15:15.24 from last July, but his 15:24.60 tonight took a sizable chunk out of the 15:26.17 meet record, which belonged to Stefan Persson from all the way back in 1998.
Other winners
- Simon Sjödin nearly cracked two minutes in his 200 fly win, going 2:00.00 there.
- Isak Eliasson and Christoffer Carlsen tied for the men’s 100 free win at 49.96. According to Sweden’s national federation website (via Google translate), it was the first time two men broke 50 seconds at a national championships since Stefan Nystrand and Lars Frölander did so in 2009.
- In para swimming, two Swedish records went down in two events. Maja Reichard scored 955 points with her 37.05 in the 50 back, while Tobias Klasson scored 624 points with his 1:02.58 in the 100 free.
27.8 is nothing to scoff at. Imagine what she could do if she just threw in a few backstroke practices. Now with the sprint orientated training 50 back could be a nice 5th event for her.
Yes. She did swim the 100 back (and 100 fly) in Beijing as a 14 year old
Oh and the really interesting effort was Ida Lindborg, if she can do something in the 100 back sweden may challenge in the 400 Mrelay
And it was all in cold windy rainy weather… after the 200 she said she will never do it in major championships again. This race was for fun, for pratice and it ‘made the 100 free seem short’ 🙂
‘made the 100 free seem short’
That is it. This nice joke explains the core of the problem. 200 is too long. It may being called sometimes a long sprint, but in case of the type of swimmers like Sarah Sjostrom it is not. She swims 200 as long distance. At her best race there is practically no difference between second, third and fourth fifties.
200 brings too much of discomfort for too long period of time. She swims 52.08 and she smiles in excitement at the end of the race You will never see a similar emotional expression on her face after 200.