Dubai: The opening day of Fina/airweave Swimming World Cup lived up to expectations on Friday night, with Australia’s Mitch Larkin headlining a magnificent display of world class swimming at the Hamdan Sports Complex.
Larkin swam the equal third fastest time in history in the 100m backstroke, finishing in 52.11, just .17 seconds outside the record set by Aaron Peirsol in the non-textile suit era in 2009. The USA’s David Plummer came in second with Masaki Kaneko of Japan third.
“I hope it won’t be long now until someone gets the record, I think someone will break it next year. It’s hard to pinpoint what’s changed for me, my life outside of swimming is good and my team around me are great and really passionate, I think that’s really helped me a lot this year. My results are giving me the confidence I may have lacked before,” he said.
In the first surprise of the evening, it was France’s Jeremy Stravius who stole the show in the men’s 100m freestyle, touching out Chad Le Clos by just .04 of a second. The UAE’s Velimir Stjepanovic, swimming for Serbia, took his first medal of the night with a bronze.
Next up was the first gold in another successful night for the Iron Lady Katinka Hosszu in the 200m freestyle, finishing in 1.55.41, comfortably ahead of fastest qualifier Italy’s Federica Pellegrini in 1.57.42, with Great Britain’s Jaz Carlin in third.
In one of the toughest battles of the night in the 100m breaststroke, Cameron van der Burgh managed to turn the tables on the man who beat him to gold at the World Championships, Great Britain’s Adam Peaty, with van der Burgh’s teammate Giulio Zorzi in third.
Van der Burgh made it a clean sweep of the 100m breaststroke events for the Swimming World Cup, taking eight gold from eight events, and when the event wraps up tonight he will take the overall title for the third time, having won before in 2008 and 2009.
“It’s never easy racing the world champion, I think this is the toughest event here, eight out of nine medallists from World Championships are here. It’s been quite a hard World Cup, a lot of travelling, it’s been quite tiring, but it’s really great to be able to do my fastest time here in Dubai. There [are] so many South Africans here so it’s really nice and they really pushed us on tonight.”
Alia Atkinson also turned the tables in the 100m breaststroke on the swimmer who had her measure in both the Tokyo and Doha legs of the Swimming World Cup, the USA’s Molly Hannis. Turkey’s Viktoria Gunes put her country on the medal table with third.
Atkinson said: “It was the last race of the season so I wanted to make sure I did something, and I had more confidence in myself so if I go out and bring it home. I tried some different things and [they] finally worked tonight.”
Next up was the first medal for the night USA’s Felicia Lee, in the 100m butterfly, ahead of Hungary’s Zsuzsanna Jakabos and Lee’s teammate Cassidy Bayer.
Emily Seebohm of Australia took her first gold for the night in the 50m backstroke, again holding off Katinka Hosszu, as she has done right through the World Cup. Felicia Lee came in third.
Seebohm added another gold to her haul later in the evening in the 200m backstroke. In a gripping final and one of the closest finishes of the night, she again held off Hosszu who led until the final turn before Seebohm put in a blistering final 50 to touch her out by just .19 of a second. Daryna Zevina of Ukraine finished in third.
Le Clos finally struck gold in the 50m butterfly, finishing ahead of Giles Smith (USA) and Ivan Lendjer (Serbia). A relieved Le Clos said “Finally! It’s so disappointing, but I have to look at tonight on a bigger scale, it’s good for me because the time is very fast. I know I can go 47, it’s always disappointing to lose, I shouldn’t have lost the 200m fly like that on the touch, but congratulations to Jeremy and Viktor, but the third one was good, I bounced back. After World Champs I’ve changed a lot of things. I wasn’t myself this year, I was doing too many things but now I have focused again, like it was before so if I lose next year I lose to the better man. I live my life with no excuses so I am happy about my state of mind, I really think I can do well next year. When you are defeated a lot of people drop their heads, but I’m the opposite, I don’t like to lose, especially to Michael Phelps!”
