08:02 | Lima, Aug. 20 (ANDINA).
Applauded by an excited crowd, Africa made its entry in the “medallists’ club” at the 3rd FINA World Junior Swimming Championships and twice in the same event.
In the fourth day of competition in Lima, Egypt won its first gold medal with Farida Hisham in the women’s 50m butterfly, in a new championships record of 26.60.
This event was also marked by the first shared medal of the competition: Kendyl Stewart (USA, 1994, 26.78) finished in the second place, while the bronze went to South African Vanessa Mohr (1995, 26.85) and Canadian Chantal Van Landeghem (1994).
The night began with Akihito Yamaguchi (1994, 2:11.70) honouring the Japanese tradition in breaststroke events and winning the 200m under the championships record (2:14.78).
Silver and bronze medal were earned by Ukrainians: Oleroksiy Rozhkov (1993, 2:13.94) and Maksym Shemberev (1993, 2:14.08). Until the fourth place - American Chase Kalisz (1994, 2:14.13) – all athletes had swum under the previous record set by Russian Alexey Zinovyev in the 2008 edition.
Christian Diener (GER, 1993, 26.59) assured the 50m backstroke victory and a hundredth of a second separated him from his own championship record (26.58) established in the semifinals. Pebley Jacob (USA, 1993, 25.75) and Niccolo Bonacch (ITA, 1994, 25.78) completed the podium.
Lisa Fissneider (ITA, 1994, 1:07.71) continued her domination in the breaststroke events. She won the 50m with a new championships record after triumphing in the 100m in the previous session. Kanako Watanabe (JPN, 1996, 1:08.89) and Irina Novikova (1995, RUS, 1:09.10) got respectively the silver and bronze medal.
In the women’s 400m freestyle, the gold went to Canada’s Brittany MacLean (1994, 4:10.32) and silver to Australia, thanks to Bonnie Macdonald (1995, 4:11.86). The bronze medal went to Gillian Ryan (USA, 1995, 4:12.28).
Confirming the tradition of Australian sprinters, Cameron McEvoy (1994, 22.69) earned the men’s 50m freestyle gold, followed by Rodriguez Martinez (ESP, 1993, 22.72) and Kristian Gkolomeev (GRE,1993, 22.80).
The last individual event at the night – the women’s 200m individual medley - was dominated by the Spanish Beatriz Cortez (1994, 2:13.57) with Japan’s Emu Higuchi (1996, 2:13.96) and Canada’s Seltenreich-Hodgson (1995, 2:15.62) completing the podium.
The emotion and excitement of the men’s 4x200m free relay closed the fourth day of finals in “Campo de Marte” aquatic complex. Canada (7:22.95), China (7:23.28) and Poland (7:24.09) were the medalled teams.
Day 4
(END) INT/EEP
Publicado: 20/8/2011