Belmonte-Garcia Takes Win 3; Tons of National Records Go Down On Day 3 of Euro's

The men’s 1500 free was a barn-burner of a race to kick off the 3rd session of the 2011 European Short Course Championships in Poland.

Two big names in European distance swimming squared off in the longest race on the pool schedule, though they were in different heats. Mateusz Sawrymowicz of the home country Poland and Mads Glaesner of Denmark each paced similarly through the first 750 meters or so. Right around that halfway point the Danish swimmer started to fall off of the pace set by the home-crowd swimmer.

By the time Flaesner at 1200 meters, with only the closing dash to go, he had fallen a second-and-a-half off of the pace, which comes to about 2.5 meters for those who are more visual. Given that the 1500 is his best event, whereas Glaesner is stronger in the 400, that seemed to be enough to put the title away.

But from out of nowhere, Glaesner dug deep and started chipping away at the pacing. First by tenths, and then as he got into the final 4 lengths by even bigger margins. The race was Glaesner’s to win, he had the momentum, he had the mental edge of having made up a large gap, and he had the force of a hot-swimming Danish National Team on his side. But without being able to see Sawrymowicz, it was touch to make that final push to cut just another tenth off and take the victory.

At the final touch, it was the Pole who took the win in 14:29.81 ahead of Glaesner in 14:29.88. It was a great battle, albeit from different heats, , these distance freestyles are like a distance foot race: final times aren’t always the key indicator of a great swim.

Even beyond those two, Faroese swimmer Pal Joensen took a huge lead through 700 meters, but hit a wall and fell back to 5th.

The Ukraine’s Sergiy Frolov maintained contact at the beginning of the race, but put together a strong overall swim for the bronze in 14:36.31.

Spain’s Mireia Belmonte Garcia took her 3rd gold medal of the meet with a win in the women’s 400 free in 3:56.39. As her total yardage continues to load up in this meet, she seems to almost get stronger – that crushes the Spanish National Record by 4 seconds, and moves her into 5th-best all-time. She still has to meet the challenge of turning these warrior-style short course swims into long course Olympic medals.

Garcia’s countrymate, and the former national record holder, Melania Costa-Schmid swam a 4:00.30, which was a touch slower than the National Record she set in prelims. In between them was another Denmark silver from Lotte Friis, winner of the 800 on Friday, in 3:58.02.

Italy’s Federica Pellegrini, who won the long course World Championship of this race, was 4th in 4:00.46. She’s never been as good short course as long, but that’s clearly an unrested time for her. It makes sense, while she’s adapting to a new coach, that she wouldn’t go for much of an in-season rest. Britain’s Hannah Miley took 5th (4:01.46) for a huge career-best time. That knocks more than three seconds off of her Scottish Record in the event.

Russian backstroker Anastasia Zueva had a great long course season, and is running that into a very good short course season as well. She won the women’s 50 in 26.23, which is a career-best time, puts her 8th on the all-time list, and breaks the Russian Record.

In what was a very fast final, the top three swimmers actually broke National Records. In 2nd was Britain’s Georgia Davies in 26.93 – that’s just short of the British all-time mark, but is a new Welsh Record; and in 3rd was the Czech Republic’s Simona Baumrtova in 26.94, which was also her country’s all-time best.

Laszlo Cseh picked up his 3rd win in 3 events with a victory in the men’s 200 fly in 1:50.87. This was one of the deeper finals in the whole meet, and though Cseh rode 3rd for most of the meet, he was able to put in a great closing 50 to blow by the entire field. The silver went to Russia’s Nikolay Skvortsov, the Continental Record holder, in 1:51.21.

Poland’s Pawel Korzeniowski led that race until the closing 30 meters or so, where his race completely fell apart and he actually ended up out of the medal standings. At the same time, Britain’s Joe Roebuck started the race out dreadfully slow: he was the last swimmer off of the blocks and was in dead last after 50 meters. He had a huge back-half and ended up touching for bronze in 1:51.62.

In the men’s 100 free, Russian Sergey Fesikov went the best time in the world in 46.56.

The men’s 50 breaststroke had the same three medalists as the 100, only in the opposite order. Italy’s Fabio Scozzoli, who is one of the best short course sprint breaststrokers in history, took the victory in 26.25, which is just off of his National Record from August. Damir Dugonjic took another silver with a career-best/Slovenian National Record of 26.34, and the Norwegian pair of Alex’s Dale Oen (26.49) and Hetland (26.54) took 3rd and 4th.

In the women’s 100 IM, the young 19-year old Theresa Michalak won in 59.05, which is her first European Short Course Championship.

Full Day 3 Results available through OmegaTiming.com.

Medal Table

Denmark continued to hang on to the lead in the medal table on the strength of 5 silvers. Spain, led by 3 golds from Belmonte-Garcia, sits just behind in 2nd, though it will probably take at least one more from her in tomorrow’s 400 IM if they hope to jump the Danes.

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Denmark	4	5	2	11
2	Spain	4	2	2	8
3	Germany	4	1	1	6
4	Poland	4	0	2	6
5	Russia	3	7	1	11
6	Hungary	3	3	2	8
7	Italy	2	1	3	6
8	Norway	1	0	1	2
8	Ukraine	1	0	1	2
10	Great Britain	0	2	4	6
11	Slovenia	0	2	0	2
12	Austria	0	1	0	1
12	Estonia	0	1	0	1
12	Switzerland	0	1	0	1
15	Israel	0	0	2	2
15	Belgium	0	0	2	2
15	Belarus	0	0	2	2
18	Czech Republic	0	0	1	1
Total		26	26	26	78