Shanghai 2011 Day 1 Finals: Dana Vollmer Smashes American Record, Magnussen Posts Textile-Best

Women’s 100 fly semi-finals

Dana Vollmer smashed the American Record in the women’s 100 fly to get the first evening session underway with a bang. Her 56.47 killed her own mark of 56.94 set in a rubber suit in 2009. She seems to be a prohibitive favorite headed into the final tomorrow night. She went out harder (26.68) than even the super-sprinters, like Therese Alshammar, and also was the only finisher under 30 on the back half. Nobody can catch her on the front end, and nobody can match her on the back half. She was able to pull China’s Ying Lu along with her to the 2nd overall seed in 57.18.

Vollmer will be way out in front of this field, with Sarah Sjostrom taking the 3rd seed in 57.29 after winning the first heat. Alicia Coutts (57.41), Li Zige (57.85), Jessicah Schipper (57.95) and Ellen Gandy (57.97) all made the final. It took under a 58 to make this final, but it looks as though it might take under 58 to win a medal.

Full 100 fly semi-final results.

Men’s 400 free final – Medal Race

This 400 free, which was much hyped before the meet, looked like it might be a disappointment. Park Tae Hwan barely snuck into the final and was in an outside lane, and early in this final World #1 Sun Yang and WR holder Paul Biedermann looked like they were out of the race. But as the final wore on, the cream rose to the top.

Park Tae-Hwan took an early lead in lane 1, and despite letting the field get close at about the 150 mark, he tore away over the last 100 meters to finish in 54.2 and take a sizable win in 3:42.04. Sun Yang also closed hard in coming from near the back of the field to take the silver in 3:43.24. Paul Biedermann was never higher than 7th until the last 100 meters, when he pushed ahead (he made his move before Sun did) to take bronze in 3:44.14.

Peter Vanderkaay of the USA finished 4th, which matches his finish from 2009. The young Yannick Agnel took a big lead through most of the race, ahead of the competitors that he could see at least, but on the second-to-last 50, faded all the way back to 6th. Ous Mellouli was a similar story in fading back to 7th.

This swim proves that Park played his prelim swim early to grab an outside lane. He showed the opening speed to come out early, which should translate well into the 200. Sun Yang, on the other hand, showed that he still probably had a lot left in his tank, and so despite his public statements that this 400 was his focus, his chances at gold are still high in the 800 and 1500.

Full 400 final results.

Women’s 200 IM Semi-Final

With this semi-final, Australia’s Stephanie Rice probably put behind her all of the shoulder problems she’s had over the last year. Though she took both IM races in Beijing in 2008, she wasn’t all that fast at World’s the year before, but that seems to be changing this year. She trailed the USA’s Ariana Kukors throughout most of the race, but chased her down on the freestyle leg to take the top overall seed towards the final in 2:09.65. Kukors will sit 2nd in 2:09.83. China’s Shiwen Ye, also out of the first, faster heat, is the 3rd seed in 2:10.08 after closing masterfully as the only swimmer under 30 on the freestyle leg.

In the second semi-final, Alicia Coutts, on a busy schedule, was clearly just racing her field. She went out as hard in the first-half as she did in the morning prelim, but this time was determined not to let American Caitlin Leverenz pass her on the breaststroke. Once she got to the freestyle leg, she was getting way more out of every stroke than her competitors, and was home free in an easy finish in 2:10.65.

Hannah Miley moved up with a much better swim than prelims to qualify 5th, followed by Leverenz, defending bronze-medalist Katinka Hosszu of Hungary, and our darkhorse pick Julia Wilkinson of Canada. This left Kirsty Coventry, defending silver medalist, and Mireia Belmonte Garcia, the short course World Champion, out of the final.

Full women’s 200 IM results.

 Men’s 50 fly semi-final

In the men’s 50 fly, the 2nd semi-final was home to Cesar Cielo, the top-ranked swimmer in the world, who went for a 23.19 to take the top overall seed. Though he didn’t have a great start (especially next to France’s Florence Manaudou, who had an amazing start), he looked comfortable through the race. He even took the chance to breathe in the last 10 meters, something that he doesn’t normally do, just to see where Manaudou was, and still managed to out-touch him.

Manaudou, little brother of the highly-accomplished Laure, was huge off of the wall with a .63 reaction time (which is amazingly difficult), and a powerful .63 at that. He cruised to a 3rd-seed in 23.32. His challenge is going to be his breath, if he takes one, in the final, as he lost a ton of momentum on his breath in this semi-final.

Out of the first semi, Australia’s Geoff Huegill continued his impressive comeback to take the 2nd seed in 23.26. Jason Dunford of Kenya, the Commonwealth Games Champion, was 4th in 23.34, followed by Germany’s Steffen Deibler tied with Russian teen Andriy Govorov, Matt Targett of Australia, and France’s Fred Bousquet.

This race is still fairly wide open, with only .16 separating 2nd-through-8th qualifiers. Cielo, however, looked very comfortable and is a strong gold medal favorite in tomorrow’s final. Of course, in a race like this, any small error on a start can sink a race, so stay tuned.

Roland Schoeman, who was so publicly critical of the CAS’ decision to allow Cielo to race, ended up finishing 9th. In a bit of a twist of cruel irony, Cielo’s presence kept Schoeman out of the final. So far, the Brazilian doping situation seems to be distracting Cielo’s competitors more than it is affecting him.

Full semis results in the men’s 50 fly.

Women’s 400 free Finals – Medal Event

The women’s 400 was swum so differently from the men’s. Unlike Park, the top contenders in this race really hung back through 200 meters, and then over the course of a 50 separated themselves from the field. Just like in the prelim, Denmark’s Lotte Friis and Spain’s Melania Costa-Schmid took the race out hard, but then around 210 meters, Italy’s Federica Pellegrini, the defending World Champ and World Record holder, just shot past the field, and didn’t look back. By the 300, she was swimming alone, and she ended up touching in 2:01.97 which is an all-time textile-best mark*. Simply a class above the field, even without the rubber suits. She becomes only the second woman, after Laure Manaudou in 2005 and 2007, to win this 400 free twice at World’s.

*There’s some debate as to whether her 2008 time from the European Championships, at 4:01.53, should count for a textile-best. She was in Arena’s R-Evolution textile suit, but she wore another suit underneath, which has been shown to give an advantage in certain suits.

Rebecca Adlington, who snuck into this final in 7th, finally pulled things together as the first big representation of the British team. She took silver in 4:04.01 hidden in an outside lane to just sneak ahead of France’s Camille Muffat (4:04.06). Though both will be satisfied with their medals, neither will be ecstatic with the times as both have been at least a full-second faster in-season. Australia’s Kyle Palmer looked solid to finish 4th, though she’ll be hoping for gold in the 200 free. Rounding out the top 8 was Lotte Friis, cinderella-story Lauren Boyle in 6th, Katie Hoff, and Melania Costa-Schmid.

Full Women’s 400 free final results.

Men’s 100 breaststroke semi-final

In a tale of two semi-finals, the second group absolutely blew away the first, with three swimmers under a minute. These swimmers were led by Norway’s Alexander Dale Oen in 59.37. That ties as the 6th-best textile time ever, though he’s twice been faster in a jammer. With all of the chaos going on at home for him, it’s nice to see him block it all out and focus on his race.

 Kosuke Kitajima had another bad finish, just like in the prelim, to take the 2nd seed in 59.77. In 3rd was Italy’s Fabio Scozzoli, a 50-meter favorite, in 59.83.

Also safely through to the final is Brenton Rickard (1:00.04), Cameron van der Burgh (who was out very hard), Mark Gangloff, Daniel Gyurta, and Giedrius Titenis of Lithuania. New Zealand’s Glenn Snyders, who broke his National Record in prelims to take the 2nd seed, added a full second to finish 13th and out of the final. Hugues Duboscq of France also failed to final in a 1:00.56, which looking forward could even things out for the Americans in the men’s medley relay.

Full men’s 100 breaststroke semi-final results.

Women’s 400 free final

The American front-half of Natalie Coughlin (54.09) and Missy Franklin (52.99) gave the USA a huge lead at the halfway mark, but Jessica Hardy on the 3rd-leg (54.12) couldn’t hold on to enough of that lead to allow Dana Vollmer (53.27) to hold off the powerful Dutch anchor Femke Heemskerk. Their final time for silver was 3:34.47.

The Netherlands, meanwhile, just got stronger as the race wore on. Marleen Veldhuis had a masterfully quick start to suck catch up to get within three-tenths of the Americans, and Femke Heemskerk landed an unbelievable 52.46: the fastest-split in the field by half-a-second. The Dutch ended up taking a gold, for the fourth global championship in a row, in 3:33.96.

Individually, it appears that 16-year old Missy Franklin has officially arrived for the USA. She was the only swimmer besides Veldhuis under 53, and easily distanced herself from medal-favorite Ranomi Kromowidjojo. Vollmer also looked good, though Heemskerk made everyone in this race look silly with her monster split. Heemskerk definitely becomes the favorite to win the 100 free, and at this point it doesn’t appear as though it will even be close.

The German relay finished 3rd, well-back of the leaders, in 3:36.36. Britta Steffen, in her first big comeback race, didn’t look great in a flat-start 54.51. The young Chinese relay, with two 15-year olds and a 17-year old, finished 4th in 3:36.75, followed by Australia, Canada, Japan, and Denmark.

For the Aussies, Coutts didn’t look too tired on her third swim of the session with an anchor split of 53.43, but the rest of her relay just couldn’t put things together.

Full women’s 400 free relay results.

Men’s 400 free relay

Australia’s James Magnussen has spent much of the last two weeks in bed with a suspected case of pneumonia, and many speculated that this illness might result in his removal from the meet. Apparently, though, some bed-rest was just what Magnussen needed to perfect his taper, as he hit an Australian leadoff of 47.49 which absolutely obliterates Pieter van den Hoogenband’s textile-best mark of 47.84 from the 2000 Olympics, which was the 2nd-oldest textile-best on the books.

All of a sudden, Magnussen has gone from a young swimmer with big potential to in conversations for the best-ever, and he’s only 20! Absolutely incredible. All four Aussies were under 48, the only relay that did so, including a nice turnaround on the anchor from Eamon Sullivan (47.72), a far-cry better than his prelims swim, to hold off the French in 3:11.00.

Despite Magnussen’s huge leadoff, this race became very close on the end. The French, anchored by Fabien Gilot (47.22) and the Americans, anchored by Nathan Adrian (47.40) made a huge charge at the end of the race, but ultimately France took 2nd in 3:11.11, with the Americans in 3rd in a disappointing 3:11.86.

France had the best 2-4 legs in this relay (Stravius – 47.78, Meynard – 47.39, and Gilot – 47.22), but Alain Bernard’s 48.75 leadoff put them in too much of a hole to overtake the Australians.

 Though the Americans had a nice anchor from Adrian, and the 2nd-best leadoff of the field from Phelps (48.08, a tad faster than he was in 2010 at Pan Pac’s), their middle two legs just lagged. Only Adrian broke under 48 seconds for them, which won’t win many medals at this level. There will be some measure of dissention in the American fandom, as Garrett Weber-Gale was selected for the final, along with Phelps, Adrian, and Jason Lezak, ahead of Dave Walters (fastest split in prelims) and Ryan Lochte (who was on this team at Pan Pacs in 2010. Both Lochte and Walters had faster prelims swim thatn Weber-Gale’s finals mark of 48.33. Regardless, the American men were visibly disappointed during the medals ceremony, and they know they’ll need to be better for the rest of this meet.

The darkhorse Italians finished 4th with three very young swimmers to begin, and aging 2007 World Champion Filippo Magnini on the anchor in a fabulous 47.31 to reach back to his younger years. Despite some criticism that Magnini was too old to lead his team to a good finish in this race, his experience gave him a near-perfect takeoff (.05) and the Italians almost pulled off a win. If he can hold on for London, and his teammates continue to improve as their age might suggest, these Italians could be medalists at the Olympics.

Russia finished 5th, followed by South Africa in 6th. The South Africans front-loaded their relays and sat 2nd through 3 legs. That included a smashing leadoff from Graeme Moore (48.15) and 2nd-leg from Darian Townsend (47.76). They ended up one swimmer short, however, with their anchor Leith Shankland (49.56) dropping way off of the pace. It was a bit surprising that Schoeman, despite having the 50 fly semi earlier in the night, didn’t swim this relay.

Rounding out the final were Germany and Great Britain.

Full men’s 400 free relay finals.

Session Thoughts

Tae-Hwan Park was really impressive in the men’s 400, but Dana Vollmer’s 100 fly swim was the most impressive swim of the first evening session.

James Magnussen of Australia will generate the most buzz with his 100 free 47.49 leadoff to smash the all-time textile fastest mark by more than two-tenths. He’s rebounded fantastically from a bout of pneumonia, and perhaps this bodes well for Emily Seebohm’s meet. We haven’t seen her swim yet, but between Sullivan, Magnussen, Seebohm, and Rice, the Australians might be the most experienced squad in the world at swimming brilliantly through injury and illness, and their ability to handle these situations could be the single biggest factor in their meet. So far, so good for them.

The Chinese overall didn’t live up to the mysterious-we-don’t-know-who-they-are-coming-out-of-nowhere hype, with only a single medal, and a silver at that from Sun Yang in four finals races. Still, based on the semin-finals, they may pick up the steam in tomorrow’s final.

The American men looked solid in the individual races (like Vanderkaay, Kukors, and Gangloff), but their relays were both unable to finish, which is something we began to see at Short Course World’s last year. Hopefully they can shake that off in later relays, where their best gold medal hopes were expected to be anyways.

The Australians were very feast-or-famine. In the men’s 400 free relay, they were spectacular, especially with Magnussen’s leadoff. Stephanie Rice was also very good to take the top seed headed towards the 200 IM final. But the Australian women’s 400 free relay, aside from Coutts who was great throughout her three races on the night, was not where they had hoped after a fast National Championship meet.

Finally, the New Zealanders Lauren Boyle and Daniel Snyders, who had such a great session this morning, came back down to earth a bit in the evening session. Still valiant performances from the Kiwis though.

Full Day 1 results available here.

Medal Table

The medal table is brief through day 1, and with only four finals isn’t hugely significant. Only the France and the US emerged with multiple medals, and nobody won more than one event. (Pool-Swimming races only).

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Australia	1	0	0	1
	Italy	1	0	0	1
	Netherlands	1	0	0	1
	South Korea	1	0	0	1
5	France	0	1	1	2
	United States	0	1	1	2
7	China	0	1	0	1
	Great Britain	0	1	0	1
9	Germany	0	0	2	2
Total		4	4	4	12