Streamlined News, July 21, 2011

PHOENIX, Arizona, July 21. CESAR Cielo will compete at the world championships, after the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld the Brazilian swimming federation's punishment of a warning for a positive drug test for the diuretic furosemide. Cielo attended the hearing Wednesday in Shanghai and the ruling was made public at 6 a.m. Eastern time in the United States today. Two of the other three athletes in this case, Henrique Barbosa and Nicholas Santos, also had their warnings upheld by the court, but because the positive test took place at their qualifying meet for the world championships, they are not allowed to compete in Shanghai. The other athlete, Vinicus Waked, had his punishment extended to one year, since the furosemide positive test was his second. That means, under the well-known IOC rule 45, that Waked cannot compete in the next two Olympics, which will be in London and his hometown of Rio de Janeiro.

The four swimmers continually claimed that the furosemide was not taken intentionally and was the result of a cross contamination incident, though the exact details of how furosemide was mingled in with their regular supplements remains unclear.

Roland Schoeman, who will likely race against Cielo in the 50 butterfly and 50 freestyle next week, was one of a few athletes who went to Twitter to voice their disappointment in the ruling. He tweeted "FINA and the CAS have done a great disservice to the world of swimming & set a dangerous precedent" shortly after the announcement.

Cielo's first race will be in the 400 freestyle relay for Brazil on Sunday.

In other news from world championships, the Chinese diving dominance continues, with Chen Ruolin finally winning world championship gold on the 10-meter platform after taking silver in 2007 and 2009. Ruolin led another 1-2 medal sweep for China, with Hu Yadan taking the silver, 10 points behind Chen. The bronze went to defending champion Paola Espinosa of Spain.

It may sound like a broken record, but still nonetheless impressive to say that Natalia Ishchenko has won again in synchronized swimming. Ishchenko won her 15th world championship gold medal today as part of the team free routine for Russia. China gave the home crowd something to cheer for with a silver-medal finish, and Canada surprised with a bronze medal.

In open water swimming, FINA debuted a new event today, the team 5K event. Each country puts three swimmers in the race, with at least one swimmer coming from both genders. The winner of the event is determined by the time of the slowest swimmer in each country, which was not always the female. The United States took the gold with the trio of Andrew Gemmell, Sean Ryan and Ashley Twichell. The three were separated by just seven tenths of a second, with Twichell recording the slowest time. Ky Hurst was the slowest swimmer for silver medalist Australia, with the fastest time for the Aussies being reigning 5K world champion Melissa Gorman and Rhys Mainstone swimming the second-fastest time. The three Australian swimmers' times were separated by just four tenths of a second. Germany's team of Jan Wolfgarten, Thomas Lurz and Isabelle Haerle took the bronze.

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