By guest writer Julia Wilkinson-Minks (2008 & 2012 Canadian Olympian)<\/i><\/p>\n
MERSIN, Turkey, June 22. CONTINUING where it left off last night, Italy won the first gold medal of the second night of racing at the 2013 Mediterranean Games in Mersin, Turkey. <\/p>\n
Friday's finals began with the men's 50-meter freestyle, and Italy's Marco Orsi and Luca Dotto finished first and second in 22.15 and 22.20, respectively. Orsi was a member of Italy's Olympic team last summer in London. <\/p>\n
In the women's 50-meter freestyle, Anna Santamans of France narrowly missed breaking the 25-second barrier, winning in a time of 25.03. Santamans placed 11th at the 2012 Olympic Games in this event, and this is her second gold medal at this Mediterranean Games after winning the 400-meter freestyle relay last night.<\/p>\n
Following the lead of his teammate, fellow French swimmer Benjamin Stasiulis won the 200-meter backstroke handily ahead of a tie by two Italians, Federico Turrini and Damiano Lestingi. Stasiulis won in a time of 1:58.66, the Italians were a full second behind in 1:59.72. <\/p>\n
In the women's 200-meter backstroke, the Italians had their second 1-2 punch of the evening. Ambra Esposito took the gold in 2:12.21 and Margherita Panziera was second in 2:12.86.<\/p>\n
Ivan Lender of Serbia won the men's 100-meter butterfly in 52.30, making him back-to-back Mediterranean Games Champion in this event. Italy was back on top in the women's 100-meter butterfly, when Ilaria Bianchi and Elena Di Liddo came first and second in 58.63 and 59.23 respectively. <\/p>\n
Italy finished the night just as they had started, with another win in the men's 400-meter freestyle relay. The team of Gianluca Maglia, Marco Orsi, Luca Leonardi and Luca Dotto finished ahead of second place Turkey in 3:15.99. <\/p>\n
Julia Wilkinson-Minks is a two-time Olympian for Canada and was a finalist in the 200-meter IM at the 2008 Beijing Games. In 2010, she became Texas A&M's first ever NCAA champion in swimming when she won the 100-yard freestyle. She graduated from Texas A&M with a degree in Speech Communication. Julia retired from competitive swimming following the London Olympic Games and now lives in Texas with her husband Shane. <\/p>\n
Follow her on twitter @juliah2o<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By guest writer Julia Wilkinson-Minks (2008 & 2012 Canadian Olympian) MERSIN, Turkey, June 22. CONTINUING where it left off last night, Italy won the first gold medal of the second<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-world","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n