Streamlined News, July 22, 2011

PHOENIX, Arizona, July 22. THE open water competition at the world championships has drawn attention more from controversy than the accomplishments of the athletes. Since the first race on Tuesday, swimmers have complained that the water at Jinshan City Beach is too warm. The temperature of the water, which is pumped into a dam from the nearby sea, is 30 degrees Celsius, or about 86 degrees Fahrenheit. This falls just below the new FINA recommendation of 31 degress Celsius as the maximum water temperature. This guideline was set earlier this year, after a FINA investigation and report on the death of Fran Crippen last October from heat exhaustion and drowning. Some athletes were unable to finish the 10K race earlier in the week, and the South African team withdrew from the 5K team event yesterday, citing high temperatures as a primary reason.

Tomorrow is the men's and women's 25K race, and some of the swimmers have announced that they will not participate. The Dutch team, which includes reigning 25K world champion Linsy Heister, will not compete, and Thomas Lurz, a top contender for gold in the event, will also be withdrawing from the race, saying the high water temperature is a major factor.

Throughout the week, some swimmers are using the media to voice their displeasure with FINA's maximum water temperature. Some say it should be lowered to 28 degrees Celsius, or about 82 degrees Fahrenheit.

Lurz won today's 5K race, his seventh-straight world title in the event. Spyros Gianniotis, the winner of the 10K, had the lead for most of the race but could not keep up with Lurz's fast pace in the final stretch and took the silver medal. Evgeny Drattsev of Russia won the bronze.

On the women's side, Swann Oberson of Switzerland won her first world title today, finishing just four tenths ahead of France's Aurelie Muller. Ashley Twichell of the USA won the bronze. Eva Fabian, who was the reigning world champion, fell back to 12th place.

We're bound to see two amazing streaks happen in diving and synchronized swimming at the world championships. With two events left, China is bound to win all 10 gold medals in diving. The host country took gold medal number eight today in the men's three-meter individual event. He Chong took the win and defended his 2009 title with 554 points. Countryman Qin Kai was primed to win the event, but scored 32 points on his fifth dive. Qin finished fourth. The Russian duo of Ilya Zakharov and Evgeny Kuznetsov, both competing in their first world championship final, took advantage of Qin's mistake and won silver and bronze. Troy Dumais of the United States had ranked as high as second place during the competition but fell back to fifth on the fourth round and finished in fifth place.

Natalia Ishchenko has five gold medals at these world championships, and 16 total in synchronized swimming. She has only lost twice. Today she teamed with Svetlana Romashina to win the duet free competition. And tomorrow, it is likely that total will increase by one as the Russians take to the pool one more time for the team free routine. Ishchenko will be one of 10 in this routine. The Chinese are becoming a force in synchronized swimming, with five silver medals in this competition and one bronze. They are likely to make it six silvers tomorrow in the team free routine after taking silver in the team technical routine.

The United States men's water polo team finally notched a victory in the preliminary rounds, defeating South Africa 20-3 today. This advances them to the second preliminary stage, which will determine who makes it into the quarterfinals. Tony Azevedo, who was a guest on The Morning Swim Show last week, scored five goals, the most goals on the US team.

The pool swimming competition begins on Sunday in Shanghai, and one of the races on the opening day is the men's 400 freestyle. The start list has not been released for this event yet, but word on the deck is that French teen Yannick Agnel is reportedly not swimming the event, in order to put his primary focus on the 200 freestyle the following day. Agnel won the European title in the 400 last year, but has said his training hasn't been focusing enough on the 400 to challenge for a gold medal.
Cesar Cielo will be a swimmer to watch on the first day. He's scheduled to swim the 50 butterfly and help Brazil challenge for a medal in the men's 400 freestyle relay. Cielo, as you may know, was cleared to compete after the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld the warning given to him and two other athletes after a positive drug test for the diuretic furosemide, which is essentially not a performance-enhancing drug, but has been known to be used as a masking agent for other drugs. The arguments used in the hearing have not been released, though they are expected to be made public soon.

We at SwimmingWorld.TV and SwimmingWorld.com will be following every moment of the pool swimming at the world championships next week. We will of course have recaps of prelims and finals on swimmingworld.com, as well as video interviews from the deck in Shanghai. Also, we're combining The Morning Swim Show and Streamlined News for the eight days of competition, as John Lohn will join us by Skype from Shanghai to analyze each day's action.

Also expected to happen this weekend is a monumental swim by 62-year-old Diana Nyad. The legendary marathon swimmer is hoping to be cleared to swim from Cuba to Florida, which could take about 60 hours. Nyad tried this swim 25 years ago but stopped after about 40 miles. She planned to do the swim last year but conditions were never optimal. We'll let you know if Nyad completes the swim.

Name*

Email*

Welcome to our community. We invite you to join our discussion. Our community guidelines are simple: be respectful and constructive, keep on topic, and support your fellow commenters. Commenting signifies that you agree to our Terms of Use