On this last day of competition its all medals, with only 7 finals races to go before the conclusion of the 2011 FINA World Aquatics Championships in Shanghai.
Women’s 50 breaststroke final – Medal Race
Jessica Hardy had a chance to challenge both the Championship Record and World Record in this race, and while she got neither, she did zoom to an easy win. This was a validating result for Hardy, who only is swimming this event by choice of Amanda Beard who offered up her earned entry in the race. Hardy ended up touching with no problems in this race in 30.19 for her second individual title in this even in the last 3 meets.
In a completion of a prophecy-fulfilling Trojan Aquatics sweep, Yuliya Efimova (30.4) and Rebecca Soni (30.58). The most disappointing finish might have been Leisel Jones in 6th place at 31.01. When she gave up the 200 breaststroke this season, she was probably hoping for a better time than that in the sprint 50.
Full women’s 50 breaststroke final results.
Men’s 400 IM Final – Medal Race
It didn’t take Ryan Lochte long to put this final away. By the end of the butterfly leg, Lochte had a full second lead on the field. By the end of the backstroke it was two, on to three and four after each respective stroke within this 400 IM. His final touch was 4:07.13, to leave him just short of the World Championships Record, but for his 5th gold medal of the Championship. That makes for a perfect meet for Lochte with 5 gold medals in 5 races.
For those wondering, Lochte switched back to his Martian shoes after this race for the medal ceremony, but was rocking the grill once again, rather than his new USA-themed footwear.
The silver medal went the the other American in this race, Tyler Clary, in a 4:11.17. That swim was more than a second off of where Clary was at Pan Pacs last year, but still left him with very little challenge for his podium position. If Clary will want to hold off bronze medalist Yuya Horihata of Japan (4:11.98) in 2012, he’s going to have to get better on the final freestyle leg, as his lead was cut by more than a second over the last 100 meters.
As for Horihata, that time is both a Japanese National Record and a birthday present to himself, as he just turned 21 yesterday. This is an exciting development for Japanese swimming, as they haven’t had a World Championship or Olympic medalist in a men’s IM race ever.
Women’s 50 freestyle final – Medal Race
After Therese Alshammar’s disappointing silver-medal finish in the 50 fly, a race that she has rightfully dominated all year, she had to be looking for a great makeup performance in this 50 free, and that’s exactly what she got. She blasted a 24.14 in the final to take the gold medal and miss the textile-best of Inge de Bruikn by only .01 seconds.
In 2nd and 3rd were a pair of sprinters from the same coutnry as de Bruijn, in Dutch teammates Ranomi Kromowidjojo (24.27) and Marleen Veldhuis (24.29). Throughout this meet, a theme has been successes by young swimmers (especially on this women’s side), but this race definitely bucked that trend as the gold and bronze medalists in this race were both born in the 1970’s, though they were averaged out by 20-year old Ranomi Kromowidjojo.
Fran Halsall of the UK finished 4th in 24.60, followed by the two 100 gold medalists Jeanette Ottesen and Aleksandra Herasimenia, and the USA’s Jessica Hardy. Hardy was swimming only 15 minutes after her 50 breaststroke win, but would have liked to do a bit better in this race, as its the Olympic event of the two.
Full women’s 50 free final results.
Men’s 50 backstroke final – Medal Race
If a race comes down to a touch between a 6’0 tall British swimmer, a 6’6 French swimmer, and a 6’9 South African, one might imagine that the finish would go to one of the latter. However, in a backstroke touch, the UK’s Liam Tancock (24.50) and his incredible stroke rate allowed him to get his arm over and to the wall first in almost literally a David-versus-Goliath story. That makes Tancock’s 2nd-straight World Championship title in this event, following his win in 2009.
The order of finish continued via height, with France’s Camille Lacourt (24.57) taking silver and Gerhard Zandberg (24.66) of South Africa in bronze-medal position. Zandberg, too, repeated as bronze-medalist in this race, with Lacourt supplanting Junya Koga in 2nd.
With this win, Tancock becomes the first ever swimmer to win back-to-back titles in the 50 backstroke. Altogether, he’s won medals in this race in four-straight World Championships, which is a fantastic feat.
Boom.
Full men’s 50 backstroke final results.
Men’s 1500 freestyle final – Medal Race
In what will surely be the race of the meet for the local Chinese fans, Sun Yang gave us our second World Record of this Championship by touching in 15:34.14. (Click here for a full rundown of the record). He broke Grant Hackett’s old mark of 15:34.46 set all the way back in 2001, which means he took down the oldest World Record still on the books. The sky seems to be the limit for this young star, in winning his 2nd gold medal of the meet, and seems to have done so without really hitting his full pace (amazingly, he didn’t get into his legs until the last 100, whereas Hackett was so good by 6-beat kicking throughout the race). It will be interesting to see how, in London, he will approach the 400 free. With this World Record (and seemingly world dominance) sealed up at least through the next few years, will he really go after Tae Hwan Park in that race? Or will he instead chase something absurd in this 1500? Methinks he sacrifices another WR in the 15oo, though securing gold, to try and double with the 400 (remember, there is no men’s 800 in the Olympics).
In silver was Canada’s Ryan Cochrane in 14:44.46. He wasn’t nervous for the 2nd-place position until the last 300 meters or so, when Hungary’s Gergo Kis started makign a great charge for the touch. Kis, who already had a bronze in the men’s 800, first made a late move to start reeling in Pal Joensen of the Faroe Islands, whom he passed with 250 meters to go, and then started chasing down Cochrane.
With another 100 meters or so, Kis might have gotten the Canadian, but ultimately was just short in 14:45.66. Over the course of this meet, that means that Kis has lopped a total of 15 seconds off of his personal best, and Hungarian National Record, in this event after putting a similar hurt on the 800 National Record as well. At only 23 years old, he’s still got some improvements to make before London as well.
The USA’s Chad La Tourette finished 5th in 14:52.36 and Peter Vanderkaay took 6th in 15:00.47.
Women’s 400 IM Final – Medal Race
Elizabeth Beisel of the USA took her first global championship in this women’s 400 IM in a new textile-best of 4:31.78. Though I wouldn’t classify this as a “surprise” result, the ease and separation with which she took this gold medal did catch me a bit off-guard. She finished way out in front of Great Britain’s Hannah Miley (4:34.22), who used a typically-great breaststroke leg to move into position in this race.
Miley, who has very little semblance of a butterfly, was able to close within a few tenths of Australia’ Stephanie Rice with only freestyle left to swim, and at the touch the British swimmer out touched her Australian counterpart by .01 (Rice was a 4:34.23), depsite Rice being the World Record holder and, historically, a better closer than Miley. This might lend to the idea that, despite Rice looking very good for someone less than a year off of major shoulder surgery, she didn’t quite have the time after rehabbing to build her endurance to its full propensity. In other words, don’t coun her out for silver or gold in London.
Spain’s Mireia Belmonte Garcia finished 4th after being unable to recover from a dreadful backstroke leg, which is pretty typical for the Spaniard. Her area of weakness is pretty obvious, and she’ll be working on it for London. She ended this meet with no medals after winning 4 (3 gold) at the Short Course World Championships just 8 months ago in Dubai.
China’s 15-year old Shiwen Ye fooled us a bit in prelims into the notion that her closing speed in this 400 IM isn’t nearly as good as it is in the 200, but she corrected that in this final. She finished in a 50 split of 29.88, making her the only swimmer to close under 30 seconds. She placed 5th in 4:35.15 in this race, and still has a lot of work to go to make it as good as her 200 IM; Fortunately, due to her young age, it would seem as though she has plenty of time to put that work in.
Men’s 400 medley relay final – Medal Race
With France knocked out after the prelims, the Americans had to go into this race pretty confidently about their chances for gold. Things started about as expected, with the Americans hanging back in 4th through the backstroke (Nick Thoman – 53.61) and breaststroke (Mark Gangloff – 1:00.24) legs, until Michael Phelps hit the water and equalized things. He split a 50.57 on the fly, a full second better than anyone else in the field, to put the Americans 2nd behind Japan going into Nathan Adrian (47.64) and the freestyle. Adrian quickly put the Americans in the lead, but as he was chasing down the Japanese, he too was being hunted from behind.
That’s because James “the Missile” Magnussen had set his sights squarely on Adrian and the gold medal, and with the help of a relay start went out very fast – much more so than in either of his flat starts. Magnussen would end up splitting a 47.00 on his anchor, but at the touch was just beaten by Adrian. The American’s gold medal time, not much faster than their prelims swim, was 3:32.06, followed by the Australians in 3:32.26. Magnussen may have come up just short, but he now is in the Americans’ minds headed towards London.
(Magnussen just missed legend status in this relay. If he pulls that out, a statue goes up in downtown Sydney).
The surprise German team, who for much of this meet has struggled on what appeared to be a premature taper for their National Championship meet, put together a great quartet at the end of this meet to take the bronze in 3:32.60. If they fix their season-schedule in time for London, they could actually be gold medal candidates in this race. In total, Germany will come away from this meet with 5 medals: all of them bronze. This is well shy of their result in 2009, where they earned 9, including 4 golds.
The big question in looking at the results is what happened to Japan, who as I mentioned above was in the lead in this race after the 100 fly. Funny thing about Japan, is that they don’t have a sprint freestyler, almost literally. Aside from Takuro Fujii, who they used on their butterfly leg, they don’t really have a world-class sprinter who is capable of making a semifinal (let alone final) in the 50 or the 100. They got a 48.8 split from Shogo Hihara, who is by trade a better short course swimmer, to fade all the way back to 4th in 3:32.89. That means a simple 48.0 100 freestyler (which is in and of itself no great shakes off of a relay start) could make them the best medley relay in the world. Their only hopes for gold in London are to 1) recruit an international swimmer to swear Japanese citizenship or 2) find a way to get Masayuka Kishida, who last year was a 51-second 100 butterflier, onto this relay so that Fujii can be saved for freestyle.
Full men’s 400 medley results.
Full Session Results & Medal Standings
There’s no denying, despite three American gold medals on the final day of competition, that Sun Yang was the star of this last session. His new World Record in the men’s 1500 free will have a wide-reaching, rippling effect for both the popularity of swimming in China and resurgent international interest in the distance freestyle events.
Elizabeth Beisel’s 400 IM swim makes her a big name that I don’t think many would have thought to be a big gold medal favorite going towards London. Being sandwiched in between a gold medal from Ryan Lochte and a World Record from Sun Yang, I don’t think that her textile-best swim is going to get the attention it deserves as it was a pretty phenomenal mark.
The Americans end the meet well ahead on the medals table with more than twice as many medals as anybody else in the field. After a slow start, they really picked up steam with 12 of their 16 gold medals coming over the last half of the meet.
China finished 2nd in the medal standings, both in golds and total medals, which is their highest finish since the Chinese women dominated a steroid-tainted 1994 World Championships. Brazil’s three golds was enough to put them technically in third ahead of Australia and France, who each had double-digit hauls but only 2 championships. These 13 medals is Australia’s lowest total since those 1994 games (let’s be honest, everyone except China had a low total at that meet).
We’re not completely done with analysis from Shanghai, so stay tuned over the next couple days as we look back at what happened, give out some awards, and have some other fun with the World Championship results.
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  United States |
16 | 5 | 8 | 29 |
| 2 |  China |
5 | 2 | 7 | 14 |
| 3 |  Brazil |
3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| 4 |  Australia |
2 | 8 | 3 | 13 |
| 5 |  France |
2 | 3 | 5 | 10 |
| 6 |  Great Britain |
2 | 3 | 0 | 5 |
 Italy |
2 | 3 | 0 | 5 | |
| 8 |  Netherlands |
2 | 1 | 3 | 5 |
| 9 |  Denmark |
2 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| 10 |  Russia |
1 | 3 | 0 | 4 |
| 11 |  Sweden |
1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 12 |  Hungary |
1 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
| 13 |  Belarus |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
 Norway |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
 South Korea |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
| 16 |  Japan |
0 | 4 | 2 | 6 |
| 17 |  Canada |
0 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| 18 |  Poland |
0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 19 |  Germany |
0 | 0 | 5 | 5 |
| 20 |  South Africa |
0 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Total | 42 | 38 | 40 | 120 | |
Brazil underperformed. 2009 WC -18 finals 2011 WC – just 6 finals.
A lot of guys underperformed.Almeida and Pereira a lot.
Macedo made 50.3 in relay because he arrived late and was suffering probably a big jet lag.
Brazil should be posted Rodrigues or Pereira in his slot.
Fratus made 47.68 in relay in Maria Lenk Trophy, here don t made better than 48.27.
And besides two golds, even Cielo underperformed a bit.Because doping scandal, his tapering process suffered a lot at the end.He wasn t expecting 2 golds, that s the why he doesn’t complain about performance issues.
I think is pure stupidity to send a relay without(at least) 2 options, but i am not a CBDA coach…
I agree that Brasil UNDERperformed
How is that Hardy’s second title in the 50BR in three years? She was still suspended at the 2009 World Champs wasn’t she?
No way Brazil overperformed. Almost all good results came at non-Olympic events. Actually Brazil underperformed big time, not good at all.
Over performed: USA, Brazil, Denmark
Underperform: Australia, Germany
Other countries performed as well as expected
Alshammar had something done to her teeth because she chews tobacco.
Hardy dolphin kicked before starting the hand pull.
So glad Alshammar won the 50 free. I was hoping she would break the WR in the fly..
She has always been very slim, and eats very little. She is very beautiful, and her technique is amazing. And her VO2 capacity and fast-twitching fibers..
Nope, Hardy was legal. She separated her hands before beginning the butterfly kick, which means by definition (USA Swimming or FINA interpretations) she began her pulldown first. The FINA interpretation of “beginning a pulldown” has been very liberal. Remember that it was a big issue when they first added the kick, because USA Swimming interpretation was much stricter, and Europeans and South Africans would start the butterfly kick much earlier than Americans.
Full replay here, at the :20 second mark.
http://www.universalsports.com/video/assetid=ba4ae77e-3be2-461d-b551-53d58dd0863d.html#2011+swimming+worlds+hardy+wins+breast
FGS can someone get Theresa a sandwich . Her head looks like a pirate’s skull with new dentures.