Sparse Swimmers Meant Only 5 Races In AM Of Day 1 Doha World Cup

2018 FINA WORLD CUP – DOHA

• Thursday, September 13th – Saturday, September 15th
• Hamad Aquatic Centre (HAC), Aspire Zone, Doha, Qatar
• Heats at 10am local/Finals at 6pm local
• LCM
• Entry Lists
• SwimSwam Preview
• Results

Day 1 prelims of the 2nd stop of the 2018 FINA World Cup Series kicked off this morning in Doha with just 5 events on the agenda. Although the women’s 400m free, women’s 50m back, men’s 200m back, women’s 200m fly and women’s 200m breast will also be contested tonight, there were not enough participants to field prelims. As such, the respective fields will go straight to finals.

Those that did get wet this morning were the men’s 400m free racers, led by Spain’s Marcos Corbacho‘s top seed of 4:01.12. America’s Blake Pieroni was next in line with a prelims time of 4:02.02, with Hungary’s David Verraszto rounding out the top 3 in 4:02.06.

Those looking for another Chad Le Clos/Michael Andrew duel in the men’s 100m fly were disappointed, as the South African was missing from this morning’s final. Andrew went on to claim the top seed with a solid 52.55 to represent the only morning racer under 53 seconds.

The men’s 100m breast saw Russian Kirill Prigoda snap a 1:00.50 to claim the pole position ahead of 2nd seeded Arno Kamminga of Netherlands. Kamminga touched in 1:01.01, with 2breast specialist Anton Chupkov of Russia also in the mix with a morning effort of 1:01.08.

Both the women and men took part in the 50m freestyle, with the women led by newly-minted World Cup Record holder Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden. She topped the field in 24.21, with Dutch swimmer Ranomi Kromowidjojo next in 24.78. Femke Heemskerk was also under the 25-second threshold in 24.92.

Katinka Hosszu of Hungary took 7th seed in 25.96 for her only race of the morning.

Andrew doubled up on his 100m fly top seed to also earn lane 4 in the 50m free, notching a quick 21.92 ahead of Ukrainian Andrii Govorov. Govorov touched in 22.31, while Russian World Cup Record holder Vlad Morozov is in the hunt with a casual morning swim of 22.35.

Dutch national record holder Jesse Puts took 4th this morning in 22.36, while Pieroni was back in the water after his 400m to claim 6th seed in 22.41.