World Deaf Swimming Championships: Trio of World Deaf Records Fall

COIMBRA, Portugal, August 9. A day after a pair of world deaf records fell at the World Deaf Swimming Championships in Portugal, the swimmers upped the ante with four more world record performances within three different events.

Belarus' Aksana Petrushenka clocked a 2:45.62 in prelims to down the meet record of 2:46.68 she set in 2007. She returned with a world deaf record time of 2:35.65 in the finale. That performance demolished her previous global standard of 2:39.61 set in 2009. Ukraine's Iryna Tereshchenko (2:41.13) and Natalya Korniyenko (2:48.32) rounded out the top three.

Petrushenka returned in the women's 50 free with a meet-record time of 26.93. That swim beat the 27.06 set by Ganna Lytvynenko back in 2007. USA's Peggy Liang (27.44) and Great Britain's Hannah Fitton (27.66) placed second and third.

Italy's Luca Germano bettered the world deaf record in the men's 200 fly with a 2:01.71. That effort beat his previous global mark of 2:02.13 set back in 2009. Russia's Ilya Trishkin (2:05.71) and Brazil's Guilherme Kabbach (2:10.72) earned second and third.

A day after downing the world deaf record in the men's 50 breast, Marcus Titus initially downed the meet record in the men's 200 breast with a 2:27.07 in prelims. That swim smashed the 2:29.13 mark set by Russia's Ruslan Lebedev back in 2007. Titus returned in the finale with a 2:16.77 to completely smash the previous meet record, and his 1:03.36 on the way out downed the meet record in the 100 breast. He still has some work to do to catch the world deaf record of 2:12.50 set by Terence Parkin back in 2000.
Ukraine's Andriy Zurgalidze (2:24.74) and Lebedev (2:25.73) took second and third in the event during the evening.

Titus followed up the 200 breast efforts by twice downing the world deaf record in the men's 50 free. First, he turned in a 23.47 in prelims to beat the 23.86 set by Georgios Dontas back in 2002, and incidentally lower the meet record of 24.91 set by Dmitry Grigorev way back in 1995. Titus returned in finals with a 23.46 to clip his newly-minted global standard by the slimmest of margins. Greece's Damianos Sevastiadis (24.51) and Russia's Ilya Sarykin (24.54) finished second and third.

Ukraine's Anna Tovsta posted a meet record in the women's 200 fly with a 2:24.36. That clocking cleared the 2:25.41 set by Katy Dobner way back in 1995. Japan's Kana Imamura (2:26.02) and USA's Kristin Ates (2:30.87) completed the podium.

Special thanks to Dana Elam for contributing to this report.

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