Verraszto, Shemberev & Peribonio Lower WC, National Marks In 400 IM

2018 FINA WORLD CUP – DOHA

• Thursday, September 13th – Saturday, September 15th
• Hamad Aquatic Centre (HAC), Aspire Zone, Doha, Qatar
• Heats at 10am local/Finals at 6pm local
• LCM
• Entry Lists
• SwimSwam Preview
• Results

Hungarian David Verraszto lowered his own World Cup record to win the men’s 400 IM to open the third finals session in Doha, clocking a time of 4:13.44 to knock off his mark set three years ago. Back in August of 2015, Verraszto set the previous record in Moscow in a time of 4:15.89.

Additionally, Maksym Shemberev broke his Azerbaijani National Record in 4:13.61, lowering his old standard of 4:14.77, and Tom Peribonio improved his Ecuadorian Record by a few tenths in 4:17.02. Peribonio, who also set a National Record in the 200 IM on day 2, had previously been 4:17.37 at the 2017 World Championships.

Verraszto went head-to-head with Shemberev for the second straight night, as Shemberev had beaten him by a quarter of a second to win the 200 fly on day 2. Tonight, the 30-year-old Verraszto established the lead on the backstroke leg, and despite a solid 1:10.78 breaststroke split, lost some ground to Shemberev (1:08.90), but still went into the freestyle with a lead in excess of a second and a half.

Shemberev closed with a massive 57.85 on the freestyle, but Verraszto managed to fend him off with a 59.26 split to touch in 4:13.44 to Shemberev’s 4:13.61. Peribonio was in the hunt the whole way, losing a bit of ground on the free to finish a few seconds back in 3rd. An interesting note on Shemberev’s race, his back-half (2:06.75) was actually faster than the world record back-half of Michael Phelps (2:07.35).

Verraszto also won the first stop in Kazan, but with a lack of competition, cruised to the gold in a much slower 4:20.68.