FINA Newsletter from Barcelona #9

Yang Sun (CHN) and Katie Ledecky (USA) were the first heroes of the inaugural day of the swimming competitions at the 15th FINA World Championships, taking place in Barcelona (ESP). In the decisive race of the men’s 400m free, the Chinese star clearly took control of the field, getting the gold in 3:41.59 - an expected triumph for the 2012 Olympic champion in the 400m and 1500m free.

In the women’s final, Ledecky also won comfortably (3:59.82), but everyone was expecting a better reaction from the Olympic champion Camille Muffat - however, the French was not in her best shape and only finished seventh in a modest time of 4:07.67. The home crowd could enjoy the silver performance of local star Melanie Costa, and New Zealand got her first women’s medal at Worlds thanks to the bronze effort of Lauren Boyle.

The most thrilling races happened with the relays’ confrontation: among women, USA recovered the title lost in 2005 for Australia (and then for the Netherlands), while among men the predictable win of the North Americans was denied by an inspired quartet of France.

In semifinal action, the highlights go to the elimination of WR holder in the 50m butterfly, Spain’s Rafa Munoz (ninth of the semis), and of the 2005 and 2007 champion Roland Schoeman (RSA, 10th). In the women’s 100m butterfly, 2012 Olympic silver medallist Ying Lu (CHN) will not swim the decisive race, after her 11th place in the semis. Michael Jamieson (GBR), also second in London in the 200m breaststroke, missed the cut for the 100m breaststroke (15th), while in the morning heats, Brenton Rickard (AUS), the 2009 world champion, could not advance to the semis.

Bo Qiu retained his 10m crown in spectacular style, defeating Olympic gold medallist David Boudia of the USA to bring China their ninth diving title out of 10 on offer at the FINA World Championships. Qiu uncorked two dives worth more than 100 points as well as a barrage of perfect 10 marks from the judges in a master class from the 10m tower. Qiu, the first man to retain the world platform crown since Russia's Dmitry Sautin in 1998, began inauspiciously in the first round after a shaky semi-final but only two of his six final dives turned out to be worth less than 99 points. 

Qiu, Olympic silver medallist behind Boudia at the London Games, amassed a colossal 581.00 points to win by a vast 63.60 points from Boudia (517.40). The American dived consistently but had to settle for the silver behind Qiu for the second successive World Championships. Germany's Sascha Klein, who shared gold with Patrick Hausding in the 10m synchro, the only title to escape China at the Montjuic Municipal Pool, finished third with 508.55 points, repeating the world bronze he achieved in 2011. Tom Daley of Great Britain, the 2009 world champion ahead of Qiu, held third spot for two rounds in the middle of the competition but faded to sixth (470.60). Olympic bronze medallist Daley has been plagued by injury and said he had been happy just to make the final. It was China's fifth men's 10m win in 15 editions of the championships.

Serbia will face Montenegro in what will be a hotly  contested quarterfinal on Tuesday following the qualification round of  the FINA Men’s Water Polo World Championships at the Bernat Picornell Pool today. Serbia sent Romania packing for home with a 13-5 scoreline and Montenegro defeated Canada 12-4 to set up a tantalising encounter. 

The qualifiers were decisive, unlike the women’s matches the day before where European champion Italy and World League champion China departed the scene.

The other quarterfinals have Greece facing Hungary, Croatia against Australia and Spain playing Italy. Greece started the day’s proceedings with a 13-5 win over South Africa with Alexandros Gounas (GRE) topping the scorers.

Montenegro followed against Canada with Aleksandar Ivovic (MNE) netting three for 13 this championship. Centre forward Nicolas Constantin-Bicari (CAN) finished with eight goals and huge respect.

Olympic champion Croatia repulsed the challenge of New Zealand 21-4. Petar Muslim and Sandro Sukno scored five each for the Europeans. Spain helped United States of America to the airport with a 10-6 margin thanks to Albert Espanol with four goals and Guillermo Molina with three. The championship also saw the last of the talented centre forward John Mann (USA), who scored 10 goals.

Serbia settled for a 13-5 win over Romania with five Serbian players scoring twice and the match’s best Nicolae Diaconu (ROU). Hungary had to come back from 4-2 down at quarter time to send off Kazakhstan 16-7. Five Hungarians scored twice and Sergey Gubarev (KAZ) fired in three. Will this be the last we see of Sydney 2000 Olympic silver medallist Russian goalkeeper Nikolay Maximov (KAZ) at this level? He is 41, after all!

Italy, the London Olympics silver medallist, defeated China 11-3 with Alex Georgetti bagging four goals. Chufeng Zhang and Zhongxing Liang left as China’s best scorers with five each.

In the final match of the day, Australia downed Germany 8-4 with three players scoring twice for the Aussie Sharks. Heiko Nossek, who scored Germany’s first two goals, departs as his team’s leading scorer with 10.

Tuesday quarterfinal programme:

15:30  GRE     v          HUN               
17:00  CRO     v          AUS
20:15  MNE    v          SRB
21:45  ESP     v          ITA