FINA WORLD CUP STOP #4 – BUDAPEST, HUNGARY
Spain has announced a roster of four for the upcoming stop of this year’s World Cup, set to take place in the Hungarian capital between October 4th and the 6th. The roster is composed of three female swimmers and one male swimmer: Mireia Belmonte, Jimena Perez, Jessica Vall, and Joan Lluis Pons.
Olympic gold medalist Mireia Belmonte, who was far from her top performances in her specialty events at this year’s world championships in Gwangju but came back to produce her fastest time in 2 years in the 400-meter IM and claimed the silver in the 800-meter free also posting her fastest swim in the same timespan, both during the Tokyo stop of the World Cup last August, headlines the Spanish roster for the meet.
Completing the women’s roster are Jimena Perez and Jessica Vall. Vall was the bronze medalist in the women’s 200-meter breaststroke during the 2015 world championships. Most recently, at the 2017 short course European championships, Vall collected the gold medal in the 200-meter breaststroke and bronze in the 100-meter breaststroke during the 2017 short course European Championships, which took place in Copenhagen. In the long course edition which took place in 2018 and was hosted in Glasgow, Vall came away with silver in the 200m breast.
Lastly, the men’s roster will only be represented by Joan Lluis Pons. Pons obtained a major international breakthrough after he placed 8th in the 400-meter IM during the Rio 2016 Olympics. During last summer’s world championships in the South Korean city of Gwangju, Pons cracked his own Spanish record in his signature event, the 400-meter event, leaving it in 4:13.30.
As far as the World Cup prizes go, Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu surpassed Aussie Cate Campbell in August to take the lead in the prize money. Hosszu led by 9 after Tokyo, but Campbell surged back to take a 3-point lead after the Jinan leg. But then Hosszu, who won this series five times between 2012 and 2016, raced her way back to the lead with a 9-point win in Singapore. This is the 4th stop out of 7 as part of this year’s World Cup, and the first that will overlap with an event of the upstart International Swimming League (ISL), which should impact participation.
On the men’s side, Vladimir Morozov continues to lead handily, winning all three meets in the first cluster.
