{"id":47097,"date":"2014-01-19T06:56:06","date_gmt":"2014-01-19T13:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/?p=47097"},"modified":"2015-08-22T11:07:08","modified_gmt":"2015-08-22T18:07:08","slug":"video-yannick-agnel-smokes-200-free-final-in-austin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/video-yannick-agnel-smokes-200-free-final-in-austin\/","title":{"rendered":"Video: Yannick Agnel Smokes 200 Free Final in Austin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Special thanks to ArenaUSA<\/a> for proudly sponsoring our coverage of the Arena Grand Prix circuit. For all of our coverage and more, please visit our event coverage page<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

AUSTIN, Texas, January 19. AFTER jumping out to an amazing 51.07 opening split, French star Yannick Agnel, who swims for NBAC in the States now, crushed a strong field with a sizzling 1:45.76 in the men’s 200-meter free at the Arena Grand Prix in Austin.<\/p>\n

The Olympic gold medalist finished just half-a-second off his in-season best of 1:45.24 from the Canet International Meet back in June of 2012, which was his goal this evening. The win is Agnel’s second of the meet after a triumph in the 400 free with a 3:49.78.<\/p>\n

Agnel’s training partner Matt McLean chased down silver with a time of 1:48.94, two seconds off his preliminary time, and a second off his in-season best of 1:48.02 from the 2012 Austin stop of the Grand Prix here in Texas.<\/p>\n

NBAC went 1-2-3 in the finale as Ous Mellouli, fresh off a podium in the 400 IM, took bronze with a 1:50.13 this evening.<\/p>\n

Club Wolverine’s Michael Klueh (1:50.80), California’s Tom Shields (1:51.12), The Woodlands’ Michael McBroom (1:51.42), Canada’s Stefan Milosevic (1:51.56) and California’s Jeremy Bagshaw (1:52.51) also vied for the individual title this evening.<\/p>\n

In his return meet to his old stomping grounds, Texas-Ex Dax Hill, now swimming with the post-grad program at SwimMAC, took the B final with a time of 1:50.80. That’s a bit outside his top times ever, which are in the 1:48 to 1:49 range, and demonstrates that Hill is rounding into form.<\/p>\n