In a first day of four finals at the 16th FINA World Championships in Kazan (RUS), the best performance appeared in a semi-final, when Sarah Sjostrom (SWE) qualified first for the decisive race in a World Record of 55.74 in the women’s 100m butterfly. The Swedish star improved the previous best global mark from Dana Vollmer (USA), who had raced for gold at the London 2012 Olympics in a time of 55.98. In terms of performances, this was the highlight of the inaugural day in the capital of Tatarstan, but many other intense moments marked the finals’ session.
In the men’s 400m free, Chinese star Sun Yang found no major difficulties in revalidating his world title, touching home in 3:42.58. He was challenged by silver medallist James Guy (GBR) until the 300m-mark, but Sun’s final lap was sufficient to secure gold.
Day10 02/08/2015 Kazan Arena
Swimming Nuoto
XVI FINA World Championships Aquatics
Kazan Tatarstan RUS
Photo Andrea Staccioli/Deepbluemedia/Insidefoto
Starting very strong, Katie Ledecky (USA) was in a good pace to break her own World Record in the women’s 400m free, but some final fatigue dictated a comfortable win in “only” a Championship Record of 3:59.13. The only woman under four minutes, the US champion (winner in 2013) had also been the fastest of the preliminaries, giving the idea that the WR (which she holds at 3:58.37) could be a tangible target in the decisive race.
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