Eleven National Records Fall at Swedish Short Course Champs

By Lennart LaFleur

MALMO, Sweden, March 17. ELEVEN national records fell at the Swedish Short Course National Championships in Malmo last week, with Josefin Lillhage and Johanna Sjoberg leading the way with two apiece.

Lillhage smashed the Swedish and Nordic marks in the 200 and 400 meters freestyle with times of 1:55.24 and 4:05.40. In the 200 she was only half a second off Martina Moravcova’s European mark of 1:54.74.

Sjoberg matched Lillhage with two national and Nordic marks as she flew to times of 57.66 in the 100m fly and 2:07.41 in the 200.

In the biggest surprise of the meet, Pontus Renholm, swimming in an outside lane, clocked a speedy 1:57.48 for the men's 200m backstroke to slash more than a second and a half from the previous Swedish mark.

Six relay marks were also set:

Women’s 4×50 free: Väsby 1.40,82
Women’s 4×50 medley; Malmö 1.52,50
Women’s 4×100 free; Väsby 3.40,22
Women’s 4×200 free: Malmo 7:59.48.

This latter time is the world´s fastest club time in the last year. The Malmo squad was comprised of SMU alumnae Lotta and Lisa Wanberg; Maria Oberg, former Univ. of Cincinnati swimmer; and Ida Mattsson

Men’s 4×50 medley: Linköping 1.39.08
Men’s 4×100 free: Södertörn 3.17.21

Both Johanna Sjoberg and Josefine Lillhage are already nominated for the Olympics. So are Anna-Karin Kammerling, Therese Alshammar and Martin Gustavsson, also competing in this meet. Also nominated is Lars Frolander, 2000 Olympic champion, still not fully recovered from an illness.

Next show for the Swedes is the qualification for the European Championships in long course. The qualification meet takes place on April 3-4 in Stockholm.

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