On day 2 in Dubai, it was again the Chad le Clos show at the first stop of the 2011 FINA/Arena World Cup series. He racked up three more wins to push his dollar earnings to $9,000, which is none-too-bad for two days worth of racing. The best swim of the day was his 100 fly, against a loaded field, that he won in 50.66: easily the best time of his career. The young swimmer who is generally a 200m specialist is really developing as a great 100 butterflier as well, which will be significant for the South African medley relay. Even in a field that included sprinters Evgeny Korotyshkin (51.14), the current World Record holder, and Jason Dunford (51.70), le Clos was in the lead at the 50m mark, and at that point there was no chance that anybody was going to run him down.
Le Clos would tack on another win in the 200 IM in 1:55.14, his 4th victory over Austria’s Dinko Jukic (1:56.10), and just for good measure he put up a dominant three-second win in the 200 back (1:55.95) against a weak field to cap his meet.
On the women’s side of the meet, the Dutch sprinters Ranomi Kromowidjojo and Marleen Veldhuis had another great sprint battle, this time in the 100 free. Unlike yesterday, however, Kromowidjojo had a dominant win this time in a time of 52.88 to Veldhuis’ 53.97. The race was tight through the halfway mark, but Veldhuis didn’t have the endurance to hang with her younger countrymate.
The two would match up one more time in the final race of the meet: the 50 fly. Neither is a butterfly specialist, but much as we see on the men’s side, the best 50 butterfliers are often freestylers, not butterfliers. Veldhuis finished up with the last laugh by winning in 26.02 ahead of Kromowidjojo’s 26.08. For Kromowidjojo, that’s a career-best time, and for Veldhuis it was very close as well.
Though Veldhuis took two of the pair’s three matchups, Kromowidjojo’s 100 free, by FINA points, was the best performance and gave her a lead in the overall series standings.
In the women’s 200 fly, Sweden’s Petra Grandlund took a big win in the 200 fly in 2:09.71, which is a solid time for her. Touching behind her for 2nd, and earning an easy $1,000 in an off event, was backstroker Daryna Zevina in 2:13.57. In the grand scheme, that’s not going to compete with anything, but was a smart entry for her to earn some quick prize money when she was done with her primary events (the 100 and 200 backstroke).
Speaking of that 100 back, Zevina took a win there in 58.18 (after a 58.16 in prelims) to give herself the 2nd-and-3rd-best times in that race so far this season.