Very Great Britain: 7 medals in one day!
The British swimmers enjoyed a perfect day in Berlin: they earned seven medals including three gold at the European Championships and their mixed medley relay even set a new World Record. The Germans and the Russians clinched one gold and a silver apiece in the diving pool.
The second day of the swimming finals started with an extraordinary scenario: though dead-heats are not a rarity in the dash events, but to see two in one is something really special. We had two gold medallists – Florent Manaudou (FRA) and Yauhen Tsurkin (BLR), both clocked 23.00sec – and two athletes stood on the third step of the podium, Andriy Govorov (UKR) and Benjamin Proud (GBR), after they came home equally in 23.21sec (and the former champion of this event, Spain’s Rafael Munoz Perez was just 0.03 sec away to share the bronze as a third one in the party…).
Then the Brits started to roll… First came Christoph Walker-Hebborn who came first in the men’s 100m back (53.32) and a bit later, the 100m breast brought a 1-2 finish for Team GB, Adam Peaty won ahead of Ross Murdoch. Among the women the Brits also had some fine races, Fran Halsall won a bronze in the 50m fly – here Sarah Sjoestroem continued the Swedish traditions by clinching the gold medal, it was their 7th in the 9 races held since 1999 –, while Elizabeth Simmonds finished runner-up behind Spain’s Duane Da Rocha Marce in the women’s 200m back.
And to have the icing on the cake, the Brit’s won the historic first European title in the newly introduced mixed medley relay. No one had any better starters for the first half of the race as the freshly crowned champions, Walker-Hebborn and Peaty. They’ve built a massive lead, Jemma Lowe and Fran Halsall managed to save an 1.91sec advantage for the end, ahead of the Dutch, while setting a new World Record (3:44.02).
In diving Russia and Germany had a great day: a gold and a silver apiece were put in the respective bags. Patrick Hausding (GER) started his five-event quest with a gold medal, though even surprised himself a bit by winning the 1m springboard with Evgenii Kuznetsov (RUS) coming second. The order was reversed in the women’s synchro platform where Ekaterina Petukhova, Yulia Timoshinina (RUS) finished ahead of Maria Kurjo, My Phan (GER) – the new Russian pair was really impressive, especially considering their age (18 and 16 years old respectively).
Press release from LEN
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