FINA Results Day 2 – World Record Broken

First final of the day and first World Record of the Championships: the US quartet, formed by Alexandra de Loof, Lilly King, Kelsi Worrell and Katrina Konopka swam the women’s 4x50m medley relay in 1:43.27.

They remarkably improved the previous global mark, owned by the team of Denmark since Doha 2014 in 1:44.04. Italy continues to make waves in Windsor, earning silver in 1:45.38, while the Danish swimmers, the 2014 champions, had to content with bronze in 1:45.98. They were faster by a mere 0.02 than the Canadian relay, in fourth!

In the men’s 100m backstroke, Mitch Larkin from Australia managed to revalidate his 2014 title, winning gold in 49.65 (he had done 49.57 two years ago). The 23-year-old star had also won this event at the Kazan 2015 FINA World Championships, but missed the podium (fourth) at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The Australian overcame the fastest of the semis, Russia’s Andrei Shabasov (silver in 49.69), and China’s Xu Jiayu (bronze in 50.02). In the history of the Championships, Larkin is the second swimmer of his country to win this event, after precedent triumphs of Matt Welsh in 2002 and 2004.

“No, it wasn’t planned… Just happened, came from my heart” Chad le Clos said that while he was walking through the mixed zone in the WFCU Centre, home of the 13th FINA World Swimming Championships (25m).

The South African winner’s hands were empty, despite coming from the victory ceremony. But he left everything he earned at his parents. The mascot went to his father while the gold medal he captured in the 200m fly landed in the neck of her mother.

These were his rewards – but after all, they were the Le Clos family’s rewards. For their reluctance to give in, though the terrible disease launched firm attacks on the parents respectively as the media reported. They were fighting cancer and even though these battles are never easy and never promise a movie-like happy end, still, love and belief can do wonders. We will never know how Chad would have fared in Rio if he had smooth preparations, without any worries because of his beloved ones…

He finished with two silver medals (100m fly, 200m free) and couldn’t make the podium in the 200m fly where he was the title-holder.

“Gold medal and silver is a big difference” he said in an interview in September, at the Arena Media Marathon in Rome.

“For me, Rio was very disappointing. There are very few positives to take from there. I make no excuses for what happened in Rio. I was in good shape, the best shape of my life but things went wrong. There were reasons why but I won’t speak on that one in front of a camera. Champions must accept defeats humbly.”

And even though he was pushed a bit to talk briefly about the difficulties he had come through before the Games, Chad put it simple: “To speak about why it happened it’s not how the champions must behave. You have to win like a champion, and you have to lose like a champion.”