HAMBURG, Germany, May 14. A trio of American-trained collegiate swimmers took three of the top four spots in the women's 100 meter breaststroke on opening night of the German Nationals\/World Championship Trials here.<\/p>\n
Georgia freshman Sarah Poewe, who had always represented her native South Africa in the past internationally, made her debut as a German citizen a smashing one, winning in 1:09.20. Florida freshman Vipa Bernhardt (1:09.64) followed and Oregon State's Birte Steven was fourth (1:10.23). Taking the bronze was Caroline Bohm (1:09.67).<\/p>\n
Poewe actually represented Germany at last winter's European Short Course Championships, but this was her first meet where a place on the national team at a World Championships was at stake. Her career-best is 1:07.48 from the 2000 Olympic semifinals, which ranks her seventh on the all-time world performers' list and 21st on performances. That time is also well under the German national record — a 1:09.07 by GDR-holdover, Sylvia Gerasch, from the Sydney Trials.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, Gerasch is also the holder of the former German Democratic Republic's 100 breast record with her gold medal-winning 1:08.11 from the fifth World Championships at Madrid 17 years ago. Prior to that, she won gold in the Friendship Games' 100 breast at Moscow two years earlier with a then national record of 1:08.29.<\/p>\n
Poewe obtained German citizenship through an uncle. She still holds the African record in the 50 breast with her 31.45 and ranks second all-time on the South African and African lists in the 100-200 breast to former Nebraska NCAA champ Penny Heyns — still the world record-holder in the 100 — and double Atlanta gold-medalist.<\/p>\n
Poewe was third in the 100 breast and fourth in the 200 at NCAAs last March while Bernhardt was third in the 200 at NCAAs and runner-up at the Southeastern Conference Championships. Winner of the SEC 200 (and NCAA second-placer) was fellow German Anne Poleska , who swims for Alabama and who will be among the favorites in the 200 breast here. <\/p>\n
In the women's 50 free, Olympic silver medalist Sandra Volker went a 25.21 to win over Daniela Gotz, who clocked a pr 25.47. Gotz's previous best was a 25.72 from a meet in Luxembourg last January. Third was 200 free world record-holder Franziska Van Almsick (25.64). She's been 25.43 and her presence here indicates retirement is apparently not in her current plans. <\/p>\n
On the men's side, the swim of the night was Thomas Lurz's 7:57.77 pr in the 800 free, a drop of some 14 seconds from his old career-best of 8:11+ last year.<\/p>\n
Carsten Dehmlow, 26, won the 50 free in 22.69 with fellow "greybeard" Torsten Spanneberg, 28, next in 22.82. <\/p>\n
The 100 breast had Rainer Schneider swimming a pr 1:02.06 for the win with Philipp Cool (pr 1:02.21) next. Third was another transplant, former Italian national team member Olivier Vincenzetti, who dropped his best time from a 1:03.20 to 1:02.43.<\/p>\n
The meet continues through Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HAMBURG, Germany, May 14. A trio of American-trained collegiate swimmers took three of the top four spots in the women's 100 meter breaststroke on opening night of the German Nationals\/World<\/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":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n