Peaty breaks WR, Italy and Denmark clinch two titles apiece
Adam Peaty’s new World record in the 50m breast was the highlight of the evening session at the 32nd European Championships in Berlin. Since 2008 the Brit is the first to bring down an individual WR at the long-course Europeans. Italy and Denmark earned two gold medals apiece, the Italian quartet set a new ER in the mixed free relay. In diving the Russians stopped Patrick Hausding’s march, the German had to settle for the silver this time, after winning three golds in the previous three days.
Adam Peaty (GBR) has already made his name by winning the 100m breast – now he caused some sensation in the semis of the 50 as he set a new World record by clocking 26.62. Peaty is the first swimmer since 2008 who betters an individual WR at the Europeans. He admitted it wasn’t a perfect swim so more are in sight on Saturday.
The Danish women enjoyed a great day. Rikke Moeller Pedersen wasn’t even challenged in the 200m breast, still, she produced a great swim and cracked the Championship Record with an 2:19.84 effort, close to her own WR. She also won the 100m, smashing the CR in that event, too.
Jeanette Ottesen (DEN) even surprised herself by ending up on the top of the podium: Sarah Sjoestroem (SWE) seemed to be red hot and invincible at these Europeans but Ottesen out-touched her by the smallest recordable margin (0.01sec). The same gap separated the bronze medallist Ilaria Bianchi (ITA) and 4th placed Inge Dekker (NED).
The men’s 800m produced the very same podium picture as the 1500m: Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri clinched this title as well, Pal Joensen (FAR) came second while the winner’s training partner, Gabriele Detti (ITA) came third. The Italians added another gold at the end of day by winning the inaugural 4x100m mixed free relay with a new ER (3:25.02).
The crown of the blue-ribband event, the 100m free went to Florent Manaudou this time: the French produced the only sub-48sec effort, in fact it was his first race when he managed to break this barrier (47.98). Much to the delight of the French, they made a 1-2 as Fabien Gilot came second.
In the diving pool Patrick Hausding’s golden march was halted in the 3m synchro event as the Russian duo of Ilia Zakharov and Evgenii Kuznetsov emerged as the winners. In fact it wasn’t an upset as they are the reigning Olympic champions who could even beat the Chinese in London. Hausding with Stephan Feck led only after the first round, then the Russians went in front and their win was never in danger any more. They came up with an almost flawless performance, only they could produce 90+ point dives (twice) and this earned them a comfortable win.
Sarah Barrow (GBR) clinched the women’s platform title after delivering a well-balanced performance. She had three dives worth of 76.80 points each – none of her rivals could exceed 72 points in any rounds, except former winner of this event, Ukrainian Yulia Prokopchuk who received the highest score for a single attempt (77.55) but her other four were all under 70 points. Still, before the last round Noemi Batki (ITA) came close to Barrow, trailed by just 2.10 points, but in the last round the DDs of the dives were different, the Brit had the more difficult (3.2 to 2.8) and since she executed it well no questions remained unanswered.
Press release from LEN
Images courtesy of deepbluemedia.eu
