World Championships: Outside Smoke Powers Alshammar to Top Seed in 50 Butterfly

By John Lohn

MELBOURNE, Australia, March 30. VETERAN Therese Alshammar of Sweden, racing out of Lane One in the second semifinal, blitzed the championship record in the 50 butterfly semifinals, thanks to a one-lap time of 25.82. That outing bettered the 2003 standard of the Netherlands' Inge De Bruijn, who went 25.84 in Barcelona.

A longtime sprint presence on the international scene, Alshammar finished ahead of another sprint specialist, Inge Dekker of the Netherlands. Dekker produced a clocking of 26.20 and was followed in the third position by American Rachel Komisarz (26.48). Earlier in the week, Komisarz advanced to the final of the 100 fly and looks equally sharp in the shorter event.

The defending champion, Australia's Danni Miatke was fourth after the semifinals, behind a performance of 26.57. The fifth spot went to China's Zhou Yafei (26.69) and Sweden's Anna-Karin Kammerling (26.81), the world-record holder, was sixth in 26.81. The field for the final was filled out by Singapore's Li Tao (26.82) and Austria's Fabienne Nadarajah (26.86).

"The swim was not too good," Miatke said. "I didn't go through the water as easy as this morning, but hey, all I need is a lane. I experimented a bit with staying underwater for longer but I don't know, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't."

Click Here to view event results PDF file.

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