{"id":507494,"date":"2022-06-23T11:33:04","date_gmt":"2022-06-23T18:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=507494"},"modified":"2022-06-23T11:33:04","modified_gmt":"2022-06-23T18:33:04","slug":"world-championships-maxime-grousset-tops-bruno-fratus-in-swim-off-for-50-freestyle-final-100th-21-second-50-free-for-fratus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/world-championships-maxime-grousset-tops-bruno-fratus-in-swim-off-for-50-freestyle-final-100th-21-second-50-free-for-fratus\/","title":{"rendered":"World Championships: Maxime Grousset Tops Bruno Fratus in Swim-Off for 50 Freestyle Final; 100th 21-Second 50 Free for Fratus"},"content":{"rendered":"

World Championships: Maxime Grousset Tops Bruno Fratus in Swim-Off for 50 Freestyle Final; 100th 21-Second 50 Free for Fratus<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the men’s 50 freestyle semifinals at the World Championships<\/a>, two high-profile performers ended up on the verge of qualifying for the final when\u00a0Maxime Grousset<\/strong> of France and\u00a0Bruno Fratus\u00a0<\/strong>of Brazil each swam times of 21.83 to tie for eighth place overall. That set up a swim-off at the end of the session to determine which swimmer would advance to the final. Both entered as candidates to win a medal: Grousset made the podium one day earlier when he took silver in the 100 free behind Romania’s\u00a0David Popovici<\/strong>, while Fratus was the bronze medalist in the 50 free at last year’s Olympics.<\/p>\n

In an extremely competitive head-to-head matchup, Grousset got the job done by three hundredths of a second. The 23-year-old Frenchman swam a mark of 21.59, compared to a 21.62 for the 32-year-old Brazilian. The times would have beaten everyone in the semifinal round aside from\u00a0Ben Proud<\/strong>, who came in at 21.42 for the top time, but only Grousset will advance to swim for the medals Friday evening.<\/p>\n

Notably, the swim-off was the 100th occasion in Fratus’ career when he has gone under 22 seconds for the 50 freestyle, by far the most of anyone in history.<\/p>\n

Olympic silver medalist\u00a0Florent Manaudou<\/strong> was eliminated during the semifinals while gold medalist\u00a0Caeleb Dressel<\/strong> scratched the last three days of the World Championships, so the highest-placing finisher from the Olympic 50 free final that will contend for Worlds medals is American\u00a0Michael Andrew<\/strong>, who was fourth last year in Tokyo.<\/p>\n