Cate Campbell Glides Through Prelims of 100 Free as Simone Manuel Takes Top Seed

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World Swimming Championships (Cate Campbell)

Gwangju 2019

Day 5 Heats (Women’s 100 freestyle)

Fresh off a scintillating anchor leg that lifted Australia to gold in the mixed medley relay, Cate Campbell got down to work in pursuit of her second world title in the 100 freestyle. The 2013 champion, Campbell qualified fourth for the semifinals, with an easy effort of 53.36. Campbell finished second in the last of 10 heats, as Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom (53.11) won the heat and took the second seed into the next round.

Campbell should be feeling good about her condition entering her individual events as she has carried a pair of Australian relays to gold medals. Campbell opened the week by lifting the 4×100 freestyle relay to victory with a closing split of 51.45. She was even better on the end of the mixed medley relay, where she brought her squad home in 51.10.

“I just needed to get through to the next round and that is exactly what I did,” Campbell said. “You don’t want to expend any more energy than you have to, so I was really happy with this morning.”

American Simone Manuel, the reigning Olympic and world champion, topped the preliminaries in 53.10, with Great Britain’s Anna Hopkin checking in at No. 3 in 53.21. Behind Campbell in the fifth and sixth positions were the Netherlands’ Femke Heemskerk (53.56) and the United States’ Mallory Comferford (53.57). Australian Emma McKeon was another hundredth back in seventh in 53.58.

Missing from the prelims of the 100 freestyle was Canadian Penny Oleksiak, the joint Olympic champion with American Simone Manuel from the 2016 Olympics. Oleksiak decided to sacrifice the individual event to concentrate on her relay duties for the remainder of the competition. Earlier in the week, Oleksiak helped Canada to the bronze medal in the 4×100 freestyle relay and finished sixth in the 200 freestyle.

“The three goals for Penny coming into the meet were to help Canada win medals in the relays, to get back to being in world individual finals, and get back to performing best times,” said John Atkinson, Canada’s High Performance Director and National Coach. “In the first four days of this meet, she’s achieved all three of those goals, including helping us win our first medal in the 4×100 freestyle relay since 1978. With four more events in the last four days of the meet, particularly with the 4×200 freestyle relay being today, Penny and the performance staff have decided together that she will not swim the 100 freestyle at this competition.”

Semifinalists

1. Simone Manuel, United States 53.10
2. Sarah Sjostrom, Sweden 53.11
3. Anna Hopkin, Great Britain 53.21
4. Cate Campbell, Australia 53.36
5. Femke Heemskerk, Netherlands 53.56
6. Mallory Comerford, United States 53.57
7. Emma McKeon, Australia 53.58
8. Charlotte Bonnet, France 53.67
9. Mariia Kameneva, Russia 53.68
10. Taylor Ruck, Canada 53.69
11. Freya Anderson, Great Britain 53.77
12. Siobhan Haughey, 53.77
13. Beryl Gastaldello, France 53.95
14. Ranomi Kromowidjojo, Netherlands 53.99
15. Michelle Coleman, Sweden 54.01
16. Zhu Menghui, China 54.25

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Nori Betar

4 years ago

Go Cate ?