2021 FINA SHORT COURSE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Thursday, December 16th – Tuesday, December 21st
- Etihad Arena, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
- SCM (25m)
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Canada’s Josh Liendo and Noe Ponti of Switzerland won back-to-back heats of the men’s 50 butterfly during day 4 prelims at the Short Course World Championships, both in national record fashion of 22.52.
Liendo was first and became the first Canadian man in history to swim a 50 butterfly under 23 seconds with his 22.52 PB. At the beginning of the meet, the Canadian record stood at a 23.31, which Coleman Allan and Joe Bartoch shared with each other. Liendo first broke the mark during the opening split in his 100 butterfly prelim, hitting a 23.13. He continued that 100 butterfly with a 26.87 back half to break Coleman Allan’s 50.90 100 fly record.
Ponti on the other hand had swum the former Swiss record a few weeks ago at Swiss Championships with a 22.75. Ponti also broke the 100 fly and 200 fly and IM records at Swiss Champs in November and re-broke the 100 and 200 fly records at World Championships. That gives Ponti another clean sweep of the fly records at Worlds, bringing them down to a 22.52, 49.49, and 1:49.81, respectively.
Ponti and Liendo tied for 4th place in the final behind field-leader Dylan Carter of Trinidad and Tobago, Nyls Korstanje of the Netherlands, and Hungarian world record holder Szebasztian Szabo.
While Matteo Rivolta of Italy narrowly missed his own Italian record of 22.14 with a 22.53 for 6th, 7th place Grigori Pekarski and 8th Sun Jianjun both broke their respective national records.
Pekarski took out the Bulgarian mark, which Antani Ivanov previously held at a 23.14 from a few weeks ago at the Short Course European Championships. Pekarski was a 22.62 during prelims to become the first Bulgarian under 23 seconds.
Jiajun was just 0.02 seconds slower than Pekarski, but also made history as the fastest Chinese ever in the event. The former mark sat at a 22.74 from Zhang Qibin in 2017, tied by Li Zhuhao a year later.
World Short Course Championships Men’s 50 Butterfly – Prelims
Top 16:
- Dylan Carter (TTO)
- Nyls Korstanje (NED)
- Szebasztian Szabo (HUN)
- Josh Liendo (CAN) / Noe Ponti (SUI)
- Matteo Rivolta (ITA)
- Grigori Pekarski (BLR)
- Sun Jiajun (CHN)
- Nicholas Santos (BRA)
- Daniel Zaitsev (EST)
- Abdelrahman Sameh (EGY)
- Roman Shevliakov (RSF)
- Thomas Ceccon (ITS)
- Tom Shields (USA)
- Jose Martinez (MEX)
- Oleg Kostin (RSF)