|
Australia’s ‘Golden Girls’ were at it again today with Giaan Rooney, Jessicah Schipper and the 4x200m freestyle relay team on fire at the XIth FINA World Swimming Championships in Montreal.
Rooney won the 50m backstroke, Schipper was just pipped out of gold in the 200m butterfly and the relay team was gallant in their narrow defeat by the USA.
Ensuring they were not left out of the party, Jodie Henry and Leisel Jones both qualified fastest leading into finals tomorrow night.
The night however belonged to Rooney who snared her second world title, touching first in 28.63 ahead of China’s Gao Chang (28.69) and German veteran Antje Buschschulte (28.72) in a blanket finish.
Sophie Edington was unlucky to finish just outside the medals in fifth with a time of 28.87.
Despite the closeness of the finish Rooney said she knew she would win after just 15m of the race.
“I knew when we went past the 15m rope I was ahead of the Chinese girl (Gao) and she was the one to beat,” Rooney explained.
“From there I knew I was going to be a real chance of winning.
“It’s been four years since my last World Championship gold medal – what can I say – I’m just so happy.
What made Rooney proudest was the way she reversed her form after a disappointing 100m backstroke performance where she failed to make the final.
“I’m really proud that I turned it around after a disappointing 100m backstroke,” she said.
“I left that swim at the pool, put it behind me and got ready for this race."
"This is the one I trained for; this is the one I came here to win."
“I was training for a long time and it paid off. I’m very happy, I’ve been doing this for me and that’s the bottom line.’’
Rooney began her career as a backstroker, claiming a surprise gold at the 1998 Commonwealth Games before turning her attention to freestyle and winning the 2001 World 200m Championship in Fukuoka.
By 2003 Rooney was struggling with health and injury problems and her freestyle had lost its potency so she switched back to the backstroke events and the rest now is history.
Rooney became only the third Australian in history to win a world championship in two different strokes, ironically behind training partners Michael Klim, who won the 100m butterfly and 200m freestyle in 1998, and Matt Welsh who won the 100m backstroke in 2001 and the 50m butterfly in 2003.
Schipper might have missed out on the gold medal but the plucky Queenslander still won the hearts of everyone poolside in Montreal by almost stealing the 200m butterfly from Poland’s giant Olympic champion Otylia Jedrzejczak.
Schipper led from the start in the four lap event, only being mowed down in the last 25m and forcing Jedrzejczak to break her own world record to claim the gold.
Jedrzejczak stopped the clock in 2:05:61 just a fingernail ahead of Schipper’s 2:05.65.
“I knew it was close but I am very happy with silver,” an upbeat Schipper said.
“I just wanted to do a personal best so to do that by two and a half seconds is fantastic.”
“I knew she had a great third 50m and I just tried to stay in front of her but she got me – I’m not disappointed at all though.”
Schipper’s time was a new Commonwealth record, bettering Susie O’Neill’s five year old mark of 2:05.81, and following her record breaking feats in the 100m butterfly earlier in the week the 18-year-old Queenslander is now officially Australia’s fastest ever butterflyer over both 100m and 200m.
To wipe the names of O’Neill and Petria Thomas out of the record books at such a tender age speaks volumes for Schipper and with the 2008 Beijing Olympics within her sights she has the potential to become one of Australia’s greatest ever swimmers.
“I grew up admiring the feats of Petria and Susie and to better them is a dream come true.”
Felicity Galvez looked like she too might win a place on the podium, turning third at the 150m mark only to just miss the medals and finish fifth in 2:10.35.
Schipper wasn’t the only Aussie breaking records either with Libby Lenton and her 4x200m freestyle relay team smashing Commonwealth record’s on the way to winning the silver medal behind the American’s in one of the most exciting events of the week.
Lenton got the Dolphins off to a brilliant start, swimming a 1:57.06, the fastest relay spilt of all time to remove Susie O’Neill from the Commonwealth record books for the second time in an hour.
Lenton’s time was the fourth fastest ever swum and would have won her gold in the individual 200m swum the previous night by an extraordinary 1.54 seconds.
Lenton handed over to Shayne Reese 1.76 seconds in front of the USA and Reese just held onto Australia’s lead with a 2:00.00 before 16-year-old prodigy Bronte Barratt, in her first international final, pushed Australia back out to almost half a second lead with a courageous 1:58.42.
The last 200m was then a showdown between Australian Linda MacKenzie and American Kaitlin Sandeno.
The taller of the two girls, Sandeno (1:57.57) took a metre off MacKenzie (1:58.42) at every turn but the Australian never gave up and fought back to draw level with ten metres to swim only to be out touched 7:53.70 to 7:54.06.
The American’s winning time was the second fastest in history and the Australian’s the third, a Commonwealth record by a whopping 3.34 seconds.
In the semi finals of the women’s 100m freestyle Athens Olympic heroine Jodie Henry qualified fastest for tomorrow’s final with a time of 54.52 while her training partner Alice Mills (55.13) finished eighth to give Shannon Rollason’s AIS based squad two shot’s at world championship glory.
Henry was superb, using her trademark powerful last 50m strength to move her from sixth at the halfway mark to first, and must now surely be favoured to finish one place higher on the podium than she did when she nabbed the silver medal at the 2003 World Championships in Barcelona.
And in a frightening sign for her rivals, Henry was the tardiest off the blocks and easily the slowest of the eight finalists that will race for gold tomorrow through 50m, giving her plenty of scope for improvement.
Mills will need to improve on her form tonight to feature but she still holds the year’s fastest time and only a fool would count her out of calculations.
Leisel Jones set herself a nice platform to win her second gold medal of the week, qualifying fastest for the 200m breaststroke final with a semi final time of 2:25.30.
Jones is brimming with confidence after her victory in the 100m two nights ago and it will take a super human effort from the other seven finalists to stop her taking the breaststroke double.
German Anne Poleska was second fastest with a 2:26.22, Austrian Mirna Jukic third on 2:26.85 and American Tara Kirk fourth (2:27.31).
In the men’s 200m breaststroke Olympic finalist Jim Piper was fourth quickest with a 2:12.17 and will swim tomorrow’s final from lane six with genuine claims for a maiden world championship medal.
Piper was fourth in Barcelona two years ago but has since moved his base to Perth to train under Grant Stoelwinder after his former mentor Alan Thompson was appointed to Australia’s head coaching role.
He has won the Commonwealth Games and World Short Course Championships and a medal tomorrow would be the natural progression.
Brenton Rickard finished 13th with a time of 2:14.68.
Patrick Murphy, the hero of Australia’s bronze medal winning 4x100m freestyle team from the first day of competition finished 16th in the 200m backstroke with a time of 2:03.15.
In other events, Italian Filippo Magnini chased down South African pair Roland Schoeman and Ryk Neethling over the last lap to win the coveted 100m freestyle final.
Magnini swam a 48.12, the third fastest swim of all time behind absent Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband’s 47.84 and 47.86, making the Italian the second fastest man in history.
Schoeman had taken the race out hard and turned 0.74 ahead of van den Hoogenband’s world record pace but tired to finish with the silver in 48.28, just ahead of Neethling’s 48.34.
American wonder boy Michael Phelps was seventh but bounced back later in the program to win the 200m IM.
The medley was expected to be a walk in the park for Phelps, the world record holder and Olympic champion, but 19-year-old Hungarian Laszlo Cseh had other ideas, leading for the best part of 140m.
In the end Phelps’ class shone through and he took the gold in 1:56.68 ahead of Cseh’s 1:57.61 and the second American Ryan Lochte’s 1:57.79.
Phelps’ swim was the third fastest ever recorded while Cseh and Lochte became only the second and third swimmers in history to break 1:58.
Website by Biz AnyWare