World Championships, Day 5 Prelims: Absences Evident in Women’s 100 Free
The Paris Olympic final in the women’s 100 freestyle went down as one of the best of the Games, eight star-studded finalists separated by less than a second. The follow-up in Singapore will look much different, though it has the potential to be as entertaining.
The field got a further alteration on Thursday, with Gretchen Walsh scratching as she continues to battle the gastrointestinal illness befalling the Americans.
That means no gold medalist Sarah Sjostrom, who is expecting her first child. No bronze medalist Siobhan Haughey due to injury. No fifth-place Shayna Jack of Australia. No eighth-place Walsh. And a diminished silver medalist Torri Huske, for whom the illness cost an event earlier in the week.
Mollie O’Callaghan is there, though, the 200 free champion in Singapore. And so is Olympic finalist Marrit Steenbergen. And rising stars Roos Vanotterdijk and Sara Curtis.
It’s a busy morning, with several world champions weighing stroke doubles. Pieter Coetze, the 100 back champ, is in action in the 200 back. Anna Elendt, the women’s 100 breast champ, is chasing the 200, where 100 breast silver medalist Kate Douglass is the top seed. And Qin Haiyang is looking to add to his haul of medals with the 200 breast, in which he’s the world record holder.
The session ends with the women’s 800 free relay prelims.
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Women’s 100 freestyle
With the preamble of who isn’t at this World Championships, let’s focus on who is:
Mollie O’Callaghan, in great form with a pair of golds already, who went 53.40 to lead prelims.
Marrit Steenbergen and Sara Curtis, who tied in 53.53 for second in different heats
Veteran Beryl Gastaldello, fifth in 53.56
Oliva Wunsch, the second Aussie, who went 53.74.
Torri Huske is also through to the semifinals, finishing 11th in 53.99. In a race where the top 16 were spread across .98 seconds, she was relatively comfortably through. Daria Klepikova of the Neutral Athletes is the fourth seed. Florine Gaspard of Belgium made it two from that country in the semis, with Roos Vanotterdijk 10th. China has two in the semis, Cheng Yujie eighth and Wu Qingfeng 13th.
Among those missing out were Great Britain’s Freya Anderson in 17th and Taylor Ruck of Canada in a tie for 18th.
Men’s 200 backstroke
The U.S. men very nearly made it two backstroke events at these World Championships with no man advancing to the semifinals much less the finals. Keaton Jones skated into the final by .15 seconds in 15th place, avoiding a repeat of the 100 back in which both Americans missed the top 16 from prelims. One of those swimmers, Jack Aikins, was 24th in the 200. Jones recovered from a disastrous start to his race, and the 1:57.11 for the 16th spot is considerably faster than the 1:57.98 to advance out of prelims at the Paris Olympics last year.
The company that Jones kept shows how difficult the sledding was. In 16th was Pieter Coetze, the 100 back winner. In 17th was Thomas Ceccon, the 100 back gold medalist in Paris. Lukas Martens finished 20th. Jones was fifth in Paris, Coetze seventh, Martens eighth.
So in the present … Blake Tierney of Canada led the way with a time of 1:55.17. He was a tenth up on Great Britain’s Luke Greenbank. Roman Mityukov, the Paris bronze medalist, was third in 1:56.15.
Olympic champion Hubert Kos was just ninth. There’s an Apostolous in the top six, but it’s not silver medalist Apostolos Christou; rather countryman Apostolos Siskos tied for sixth with tied with Kodai Nishiono of Japan.
Women’s 200 breaststroke
World-record holder Evgeniia Chikunova marker her return to competition by winning the third heat of four in 2:22.30 to get the top seed. Kate Douglass was comfortable in the final heat in 2:23.28 to finish second, while Alina Zmushka was third for winning the second heat.
Among those going through are Angharad Evans, who missed the top 16 in the 100 breast, in fourth. Anna Elendt, the 100 breast winner, was 10th. Alex Walsh, who has a silver medal in the 200 individual medley, barely scraped through in 14th place. Less fortunate was one of the people she shared that podium with, bronze medalist Mary-Sophie Harvey 17th to miss out.
Men’s 200 breaststroke
Aleksandr Zhigalov of the Neutral Athletes set the pace in 2:08.32 seconds, but he has company. Ippei Watanabe of Japan was second in 2:08.41, followed closely by a tremendous swim by AJ Pouch in 2:08.62. Qin Haiyang was fourth, followed by short-course world champ Carles Coll Marti and Olympic bronze medalist Caspar Corbeau. Kirill Prigoda, DQed in the 100 breast final, was seventh.
Dong Zhihao, who won gold at the Doha World Championships, was 15th, barely scraping in in 2:!1.15. No such luck for Denis Petrashov, the 100 breast bronze medalist in 19th.
The chaos befalling the meet took out not only Josh Matheny but Nicolo Martinenghi, who also scratched the event.
Women’s 800 freestyle relay
In a thrilling display, 10 teams were culled to eight in the one-heat preliminaries that served to bully South Korea and South Africa out of the field and give out a bunch of extra medals.
The U.S. will want some of those, after the quartet of Simone Manuel, Anna Peplowski, Anna Moesch and Bella Sims went 7:49.43. Hard to tell what value the splits are in a prelims where safety was literally the only thing that mattered, but Peplowski went 1:55.16 to possibly position herself for a final leg. Katie Ledecky, Claire Weinstein and possibly Erin Gemmell are waiting in the wings, pending illness.
Australia is likely to change out the whole team after Abbey Webb, Milla Jansen, Hannah Casey and Brittany Castelluzzo going 7:51.76. Castelluzzo went 1:55.93 on the end.
China was third in 7:46.06. Yu Zidi led off in 1:59.28, with Yang Peiqi the fastest in 1:57.32.
