2015 FINA World Championships: Day 6 Prelims Preview

2015 FINA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Pool swimming: Sunday, August 2nd – Sunday, August 9th
• Prelims 9:30AM/Finals 5:30PM (Local Time)
• Kazan Arena Stadium
• Kazan, Russia (UTC+3 hours)
• Full Coverage
• All Sport Medal Tables
• Live Stream (Universal Sports)
• Schedule and Results

Men’s 50m Freestyle

After a very exciting finish in the men’s 100 freestyle at the last session, the 50 free prelims starts us off on day 6. There are a total of 12 heats in this event. The 10th heat features Italian Marco Orsi, Great Britain’s Ben Proud and China’s Ning Zetao who is fresh off a victory in the 100 free last night. Heat 11 features Americans Nathan Adrian and Anthony Ervin. Ervin is the gold medalist in this event from the 2000 Olympics as well as the 2001 world championships, but had a disastrous first swim at these championships in the 400 free relay and will be looking to rebound. Adrian will also look to rebound after a very disappointing 7th place finish in the 100 yesterday. Joining the Americans in heat 11 will be Matthew Abood of Australia, Bruno Fratus of Brazil and 50 fly specialist Andrii Govorov of Ukraine. The 12th and final heat features Kristian Gkolomeev of Greece who was the 2014 NCAA champion in this event and the runner-up this year. He will be looking to prove his capability in long course metres at an international competition. Joining Gkolomeev in heat 12 will be 2012 Olympic champ Florent Manaudou of France and 2013 silver medalist Vladimir Morozov of Russia. Manaudou will look to continue his success here as he already has 2 gold medals at these championships from the 50 fly and 4×100 free relay. Morozov will look to have a rebound performance after false starting in the 100m free semi’s, an event in which he was the favourite coming in. After a 6th place finish in the 50m fly, three-time defending champion Cesar Cielo withdrew from the rest of the competition citing shoulder issues, meaning there will be a new champion in 2015. Another glaring omission in this event is Canadian Santo Condorelli. Condorelli failed to qualify for worlds in the 50 free, but after his solid 9th place performance in the 50 fly and consistently taking out the 100m free at these championships under 23 seconds, he would have been fun to watch here in the 50 free. He just missed a medal last night in the 100 free finishing 4th. Watch out for him heading into Rio next year.

Women’s 50m Butterfly

The female butterfly sprinters have had to wait a few days for this event as the 100 fly went off on the first day of the meet, but the 50 fly is finally here. Heat 5 will feature Canadian Katerine Savard, Australian Emma McKeon, Denmark’s Jeanette Ottesen and China’s Lu Ying. These 4 swimmers all made the final in the 100 fly, finishing 2nd through 5th, with only Sarah Sjostrom beating them. Ottesen and Lu will each be looking for their second medal of the championship. The 6th heat features Claire Donahue of the United States, Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace of the Bahamas and Francesca Halsall of Great Britain. Donahue had a disappointing performance in the 100 fly missing the semi-final so she will hope to do that here in the 50, and Vanderpool-Wallace and Halsall should be fresh as they both didn’t compete in the 100m freestyle. The penultimate heat features Canadian Noemie Thomas, world record holder Sarah Sjostrom, Inge Dekker of the Netherlands and Kendyl Stewart of the United States. Based off of what we have seen in the past and so far at these championships, Sjostrom shouldn’t be challenged in this event.

Men’s 100m Butterfly

The men’s 100 fly will have a total of 8 heats. In heat 5 will be 50 fly world recorder holder and 2009 bronze medalist in this event Rafael Munoz. Munoz failed to make the final in the 50 fly which is considered his better event. The first circle seeded heat features 200 IM silver medalist Thiago Pereira, 50 fly bronze medalists Konrad Czerniak and Laszlo Cseh, and Pavel Sankovich of Belarus. Czerniak has won back to back medals in this event with silver in 2011 and bronze in 2013. Cseh is coming off of his 200 fly victory and won silver in this event in 2013. He will be very dangerous. Also joining these men in heat 6 will be Adam Barrett of Great Britain and Piero Codia of Italy. Heat 7 features Takuro Fujii of Japan, Jayden Hadler of Australia and Americans Tom Shields and Tim Phillips. Also in this heat will be Pawel Korzeniowski of Poland and 200 fly specialist Viktor Bromer of Denmark. The final heat features defending world champion Chad Le Clos, Yauhen Tsurkin of Belarus and 50m fly finalist Joseph Schooling of Singapore. Le Clos will be looking for a strong performance after being upset in the 200 fly final by Cseh. Also in this heat will be the Russian duo of Viacheslav Prudnikov and Evgeny Koptelov.

Women’s 200m Backstroke

The women’s 200 backstroke will have just 5 heats. Heat 3 will have Canadian Dominique Bouchard along with young star Daria Ustinova of Russia and American Elizabeth Beisel. Bouchard and Ustinova will look for their best performance of these championships here in their best event, and Beisel will have her first swim of the championships. Heat 4 will have German Jenny Mensing, Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu, and Great Britain’s Elizabeth Simmonds. Hosszu had her first finals session off last night so we should see her pop a fast time here. Also in this heat will be 2014 European champion Duane Da Rocha of Spain. In the final heat we will see Missy Franklin of the United States, Emily Seebohm and Hayley Baker of Australia and Hilary Caldwell of Canada. Franklin will look to defend her world title in this event after failing to do so in both the 100 backstroke and 200 freestyle. Seebohm is coming off a victory in the 100 back and Baker is the 4th fastest performer this year. Also in this heat will be two-time Olympic champion in this event Kirsty Coventry.

Men’s 4x200m Freestyle Relay

None of the relays at these championships have had entry times, which isn’t really a big deal, the only thing is that it makes the preliminary heats scattered with random heat and lane assignments. For example, heat 1 of the men’s 4x200m free features Germany, who are pretty strong in this event, as one of the 4 teams in the first heat. Then in heat 2 Venezuela is in lane 4, which makes no sense at all. Anyway, all the swimmers have to worry about is putting their best effort forward. Along with Germany, Poland will be in heat 1 and they could be strong here. Heat 2 will have Brazil in lane 0, Great Britain in 1, the Australians in 3, China in 5 and the United States in 7. The American prelim team will likely feature Reed Malone, Clay Youngquist, Michael Klueh and Michael Weiss. Of course, after the debacle in the 4×100 free the coaches could surprise and throw in individual 200 freestylers Ryan Lochte or Conor Dwyer, but that seems unlikely. This is the only event these four men came to Kazan to swim, so I assume the coaches will let them do that, but you know for sure they will be giving 100% effort. Lochte and Dwyer will sub-in for the final (fingers crossed they get there), and Tyler Clary is definitely an option for them in the final after his superb anchor leg at the Short Course World Championships. His inclusion probably depends on how well the prelim swimmers fare. The Australian preliminary squad will feature Grant Hackett in his first swim of these championships, along with Thomas Fraser-Holmes, Daniel Smith and Kurt Herzog. David McKeon and Cameron McEvoy will sub-in for the final. Of course the coaches have the final say with relay rosters but this is what is expected. China is coming off a bronze medal at the 2013 world championships, and Sun Yang is their secret weapon. Also in heat 2 will be Belgium who have a great chance of making the final after winning bronze at the European championships last year. The final heat will have Russia swimming lane 0 (again, it makes no sense), Denmark, Italy, France, Japan and the Netherlands. Russia won silver at both the 2013 worlds and 2014 Euro’s and will hope to turn that into gold this year in front of the home crowd. Italy was 6th at the Euro’s last year, France was 4th and the Dutch men finished 5th. They will all be in the mix for a spot in the final. Japan had an outstanding performance at last years Pan Pacific championships, almost beating the Americans in this event. They will look to do some damage here, but will be in tough without their star performer Kosuke Hagino.

Women’s 800m Freestyle

The prelims session will finish off with the women’s 800 freestyle. In the 3rd of 5 heats we will see Kristel Kobrich of Chile swim. Kobrich had a massive drop in time in the 1500 freestyle and made the final. She will look to do the same here in the 800. In heat 4 we will see Jessica Thielmann (GBR), Sarah Kohler (GER), Becca Mann (USA), Jaz Carlin (GBR), Jessica Ashwood (AUS) and Sharon van Rouwendaal (NED). Ashwood and van Rouwendaal have had successful meets thus far both winning medals in the 400 and finaling in the 1500. Carlin will be searching for her first medal of the championships after finishing 4th in the 400. She had a very fast 1:56.35 split on Great Britain’s 5th place finishing 4×200 freestyle relay. Mann will have her first swim in the pool as she has already competed in the 10km open water event in Kazan. In the final heat we will see 1500 bronze medalist Boglarka Kapas of Hungary, along with Katie Ledecky who has already won 4 gold medals at these championships and will look for number 5 in this event. They will be joined by Lauren Boyle (NZL) and Lotte Friis (DEN) in the last heat.