BARCELONA, Spain, June 4. THE first stop on the Mare Nostrum Series got under way Saturday with Romania\u2019s Camelia Potec emerging as the only double-winner. Otherwise, the wealth was spread throughout the field, as athletes move into the final stages of preparation for the World Championships in Montreal.<\/p>\n
The reigning Olympic champion in the 200 freestyle, Potec won that event in 1:59.71, the only mark under the two-minute barrier. She then came back to take top honors in the 800 freestyle, thanks to a performance of 8:40.36. She was joined as a Romanian victor by Razvan Florea, who won the men\u2019s 200 backstroke in 1:59.77. The bronze medalist in the event in Athens, Florea outdistanced Austria\u2019s Markus Rogan, the Olympic silver medalist (2:00.22).<\/p>\n
Inge Dekker and Marleen Veldhuis posted strong showings for the Netherlands. While Dekker won the women\u2019s 50 butterfly (27.02), Veldhuis bested the competition in the women\u2019s 50 freestyle, behind a mark of 25.18. South Africa\u2019s Ryk Neethling won the men\u2019s 50 fly (24.29) and Spain\u2019s Eduard Lorente won the men\u2019s 50 free (22.65).<\/p>\n
A handful of Olympic medalists notched event victories, including Poland\u2019s Otylia Jedrzejczak. The gold medalist in the women\u2019s 200 fly, Jedrzejczak won her pet event in 2:10.31. Meanwhile, Hungary\u2019s Laszlo Cseh prevailed in the men\u2019s 200 individual medley with a blazing 1:59.87 and Russia\u2019s Stanislava Komarova earned victory in the women\u2019s 200 backstroke (2:12.01). Cseh won bronze in Athens in the 400 I.M. while Komarova won silver in the 200 back.<\/p>\n
In the breaststroke events, Russia\u2019s Dimitry Komornikov won the men\u2019s 200 distance in a solid 2:11.80 and Great Britain\u2019s Chris Cook won the 50 breast (28.11). Female triumphs in the breast were secured by Austria\u2019s Mirna Jukic in the 200 (2:27.84) and Beata Kaminska in the 50 (31.99).<\/p>\n
Other winners from the first day in Barcelona were the Ukraine\u2019s Sergey Fesenko in the 400 free (3:50.69), Brazil\u2019s Fabiola Molina in the women\u2019s 50 back (29.49), Germany\u2019s Marco DiCarli in the men\u2019s 50 back (25.78) and Russia\u2019s Svetlana Karpeeva in the women\u2019s 200 I.M. (2:16.72). Triumphs were also registered by Russia\u2019s Nikolay Skvortsov in the men\u2019s 200 fly (1:57.57) and Spain\u2019s Olaf Wildeboer-Faber in the men\u2019s 200 free (1:50.13).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BARCELONA, Spain, June 4. THE first stop on the Mare Nostrum Series got under way Saturday with Romania\u2019s Camelia Potec emerging as the only double-winner. Otherwise, the wealth was spread<\/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":[10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n