Streamlined News

PHOENIX, Arizona, December 16. LAST night in Rio de Janeiro, Cesar Cielo swam a 21.97 in the 50 long course free at the Brazil Open, then scratched finals this morning.

Yesterday’s swim was the eighth time the world and Olympic champion has swum under 22 seconds in 2011, which is four times more than Nathan Adrian, who recently notched his fourth sub-22 second swim at the US nationals. Cielo is scheduled to swim the 50 fly in prelims tonight.

Felipe Silva swam a 26.91 in the 50 breast prelims yesterday, which is a tenth faster than he swam in July to win that event at the world championships. The time still keeps him second in the world behind the 26.90 that Cameron van der Burgh swam in the 50 breast semis in Shanghai.

Brazil still has work to do on the women’s side, as no women have swum faster than the Olympic qualifying time at the Brazil Open.

Tonight in Atlanta, Georgia, is the first night of the Duel in the Pool, which will pit some of the best American swimmers against a conglomerate of swimmers from Europe in short course meters racing. In the last duel, the United States won handily, but at that competition, the Americans had Michael Phelps and Nathan Adrian. Both swimmers won’t be at the meet this weekend, which could affect the point spread in several events. The meet begins at 6:30 p.m. Eastern tonight and 2:30 p.m. tomorrow. And be sure to visit swimmingworld.tv, where we’ll have post-race interviews from some of the top swimmers there.

Ian Thorpe is racing at a long course meet in Italy today, his first long course racing in about five years. Thorpe will race the 100 and 200 freestyles against some heavy hitters in Italy, including Luca Dotto and Filippo Magnini. Thorpe is looking to get into the form needed to make the Australian Olympic team in both races, and help the Aussies in the freestyle relays.

The Salnikov Cup in Moscow this weekend will feature some top international names racing in short course meters. Yulia Efimova, who trains in Los Angeles, will return to her native country to race in the breaststrokes. Cameron van der Burgh, Gerhard Zandberg and Darian Townsend will fly the flag for South Africa, while Swimming World’s male European swimmer of the year, Alexander Dale Oen, will race again, one week after winning the 100 breast at the European championships. Germany has sent a squad of 10 swimmers, including Paul Biedermann and Britta Steffen. Randall Bal, who hasn’t competed in the US since the 2009 nationals, will also race in Moscow.

So it will be a busy week of swimming all over the world, and we’ll bring you recaps on swimmingworld.com.

Watch today’s episode of Streamlined News

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