TURKU, Finland, April 23. THE initial night of swimming took place in Turku, Finland as the Finnish Long Course Nationals came to a close on the first of five days of competition.<\/p>\n
Veera Kivirinta posted a 31.89 to win the women’s 50-meter breaststroke, a time that hovers outside the top 20 in the SwimVortex world rankings. Anna Makinen touched second in 32.29 with Jenna Laukkanen winding up third overall in 32.70.<\/p>\n
Noora Laukkanen pushed her way past the field in the women’s 400-meter IM to win the title in 4:56.19 with Hilla Kortetjarvi taking second overall in 4:59.49. Janna Ovaska wound up third in 5:01.41.<\/p>\n
Simmis Grani’s Eetu Piiroinen crushed the field in the men’s 400-meter free in 3:55.99, while Cetus Espoo teammates Sami Juopperi (4:02.36) and Jere Laukkanen (4:06.36) touched second and third behind him to round out the top three.<\/p>\n
Riku Poytakivi claimed the men’s 50-meter fly crown in 24.41 with Tuomas Pokkinen taking second in 25.08. Ossi Oksa earned third-place honors in 25.18 with breaststroke specialist Eetu Karvonen managing a fourth-place 25.23 in the sprint fly.<\/p>\n
Laura Lajunen hit the wall in 8:59.72 to win the women’s 800-meter freestyle, while Mira Palovuori (9:07.46) and Benita Haikola (9:10.56) pocketed second and third in the distance event.<\/p>\n
The Cetus Espoo foursome of Aleksi Eskelinen (1:54.75), Sami Juopperi (1:52.70), Jere Laukkanen (1:53.49) and Riku Poytakivi (1:56.02) smashed the field in the men’s 800-meter free relay with a time of 7:36.96. That performance set the senior meet record, breaking the previous mark of 7:37.16 from a year ago by Cetus. The squad still has some time to drop to challenge the hallowed 1992 Finnish record of 7:28.71 set at the Barcelona Olympic Games.<\/p>\n
In semifinal action, Finnish legend Hanna-Maria Seppala cruised to the top seed in the women’s 100-meter free with a 56.03, while Mimosa Jallow took second in 57.46. Laura Kurki claimed third in 58.05. Aleksi Schmid grabbed the men’s 100-meter back top seed with a 58.50. Sergei Haukka (58.69) and Miro Vasko (58.75) placed second and third out of semis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TURKU, Finland, April 23. THE initial night of swimming took place in Turku, Finland as the Finnish Long Course Nationals came to a close on the first of five days<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":54030,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[26845,7672,1540,1068,962,25070,10070,35928,35931,32191,35930,35933,35934,35926,35927,24693,142,35929,35932],"class_list":["post-54028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-world","tag-benita-haikola","tag-breaststroke-specialist","tag-espoo","tag-europe","tag-finland","tag-geography-of-europe","tag-hanna-maria-seppala","tag-janna-ovaska","tag-laura-kurki","tag-laura-lajunen","tag-mira-palovuori","tag-miro-vasko","tag-riku-poytakivi","tag-sami-juopperi","tag-sergei-haukka","tag-sports","tag-swimming","tag-the-barcelona-olympic-games","tag-turku"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n