SWIMMING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS:MICHAEL PHELPS comprehensively put the disappointment of losing his 200 metres freestyle crown behind him by establishing a world record of one minute 51.51 seconds when he struck gold in the men's 200 metres butterfly in Rome yesterday.
In a week dominated by the use of full bodysuits, the American superstar, wearing the Speedo LZR leggings, didn’t go through with his coach’s threat of pulling out of the meet due to the controversy surrounding the contentious 100 per cent polyurethane outfits.
After defeat in the 200 metres free, Bob Bowman said he would tell the eight-time Olympic champion “not to swim until the rules are implemented”, banning the suits. It was a veiled threat against Fina, the world governing body, but Phelps lined up in last night’s butterfly final with Takeshi Matsuda of Japan and Dinko Jukic of Austria – on either side of the American – also forgoing the use of the bodysuit.
Phelps took it out hard, under world-record pace at every spilt, and in the end took the gold medal over half a second under the time he had set at Beijing.
Bodysuited Pawel Korzeniowski came through to take silver with Matsuda winning bronze.
Irish swimmers have also taken advantage of the new technology to set records that may be tough to beat when the sport is returned to “textile” suits from next year.
In the past many had tried to break through the 50 seconds for the men’s 100 metres freestyle and were left frustrated. Barry Murphy finally accomplished it in the lead-off leg in the 4x100 metres freestyle relay last Sunday with a 49.98 seconds time. Murphy lowered that to 49.76 seconds in a lung-bursting heat of the individual 100 yesterday.
However, the record only stood for a few minutes as Ryan Harrison, Murphy’s team-mate at Tennessee, won the following heat in 49.49 seconds, bringing home the last 50, like the tough distance swimmer he is, to also win his heat.
Good as the times were, they were still someway short of making the top 16.
Aishling Cooney raced in the women’s 50 metres breaststroke, but didn’t progress but Gráinne Murphy set an Irish junior record in the women’s 200 metres butterfly as the meet continues on a positive note for the 16-year-old
Today Andrew Bree takes to the pool for his favoured event in the heats of the men’s 200 metres breaststroke at Foro Italico. Bree finished 10th overall in the event at the Beijing Olympics and he will hope to go one further by making the final here. The 27-year-old must firstly get out of the heats and into tonight’s semi-final. “I’m relaxed and I feel very confident. My training has been good towards the 200 and I’m just anxious to get on with it and get into the water,” he said.
Other Irish swimmers in action today are Fiona Doyle and Clare Dawson in the women’s 100 metres freestyle, Karl Burdis in the 200 metres backstroke, and the women’s 4x200 metres freestyle relay squad.
The world records set in Rome now stand at 21. Little-known American Mary Descenza, swimming in the heats of the 200 metres butterfly, registered two minutes 4.14 seconds in the fourth heat of six.
In the evening finals records went to Aleksandra Gerasimenya of Belarus in the women’s 50 metres backstroke (27.38 secsonds), Federica Pellegrini of Italy who did the 200m-400metres freestyle double, winning the 200 in 1:52.98 while Cameron Van Der Burgh of South Africa won the men’s 50 metres breaststroke in 26.67 secs. Zhang Lin of China destroyed the men’s 800 metres freestyle record in the final race of the night in 7:32.12, over six seconds better than Grant Hackett’s four-year-old record time.
