Schooling & Blume No-Show On Day 2 Of 2019 Flanders Cup

2019 FLANDERS CUP

• Saturday, January 19th – Sunday, January 20th
• Olympic Swimming Center, Antwerp, Belgium
• LCM
• Meet Site
• SwimSwam Meet Preview
• Day 1 Prelims Recap/Day 1 Finals Recap
• Start Lists/Live Timing

Day 2 Prelims Highlights

After Lithuanian Danas Rapsys clinched a 200m freestyle FINA ‘A’ cut, and Arno Kamminga and Marco Koch accomplished the same feat in the men’s 200m breaststroke last night, a Belgian woman got the job done in the 50m breaststroke during this morning’s prelims.

Leading the women’s breast sprint was European Championships medalist Fanny Lecluyse, who notched a morning effort of 31.19, dipping under the FINA World Championships-qualifying standard of 31.22. The #2 seed, teammate Fleur Vermeiren is super close to the mark and may clear it tonight, having collecting an AM swim of 31.35.

Two Brits took the lead in the women’s 200m freestyle, led by yesterday’s 100m freestyle gold medalist Freya Anderson. The teenage Commonwealth Games and European Championships medalist touched the wall in 2:01.50, with teammate Georgia Coates over a second behind in a casual 2:02.95.

The Short Course World Championships bronze medalist in the men’s 50m back, Shane Ryan of Ireland, staked his claim on this event early, leading a trio of sub-26 second swimmers in 25.48. Dutch freestyle ace Jesse Puts notched 25.71 to flank Ryan in tonight’s final, while Israel’s Jonatan Kopelev is also in the mix with his morning effort of 25.89.

British teen Nick Pyle is also lurking as the 5th seed with a prelims swim of 26.12.

Another Brit, Jess Fullalove looked good this morning in the women’s 100m back, clocking 1:01.48. She’ll need even more speed to hold off challengers Mie Nielsen, Katinka Hosszu and Maaike de Waard, all of whom made tonight’s final.

Dutchman Arno Kamminga fell just short of the FINA ‘A’ cut in this morning’s 100m breaststroke, taking the top seed in 1:00.25. He leads the field, which includes Koch, Ireland’s Darragh Greene and Denmark’s Tobias Bjerg by over 2 seconds. Kamminga is looking to notch at least 59.95 in order to qualify for Gwangju.

Two swimmers dipped under 50 seconds in the men’s 100m freestyle, led by Dutch racer Kyle Stolk‘s 49.75. Rapsys was .21 behind in 49.96 and will look to double up on his 200m free victory from yesterday.

Olympic silver medalist in this event, Pieter Timmers, did what he needed to make the final, claiming the 5th seed in 50.23.

Of note, fly maestro Joseph Schooling of Singapore was slated to swim this event, but wound up no-showing the race. He was also slated to swim the 50m fly today, but also no-showed that event. He finished 5th in the 100m fly during last night’s finals.

He wasn’t the only scratch by an Olympian, as Pernille Blume was expected to race the women’s 50m free, but didn’t appear behind the blocks. That left Dutch sprinter Kim Busch to take the top seed in 25.05, just .01 outside of the FINA ‘A’ cut of 25.04.