Swimming World Cup: Le Clos and Hosszu steal the show in Dubai

Scintillating performances in the pool saw Chad Le Clos and Katinka Hosszu take the Swimming World Cup Cluster (Doha and Dubai) awards tonight along with a bonus cheque of US$50,000 each to add to the prize money they have already collected during the competition.

Hosszu continued her dominance in the pool, taking a total of eight gold medals and one bronze from her nine events over the two days in Dubai, and breaking two world records. 

Le Clos meanwhile kept his four year Dubai winning streak going, winning two golds tonight for a total of four, and only narrowly missed a world record.

Hosszu followed on from her impressive performances on Day 1 where she set a new 400m IM world record and took four gold from four events, with another world record in the 100m IM in this morning’s heats.

More records eluded her but she was unstoppable in all but her final event, the 50m butterfly. She started off with a win in the 400 IM and was on world record pace until the half way mark, but slowed to finish in 4:22.06, with Spain’s Mireia Belmonte in second and USA’s Caitlin Leverenz in third.

Leverenz was happy with her bronze, and praised Hosszu’s performances. “We had a great rivalry in college but she has just taken it up a level. But it’s good for us, it pushes us all to work harder and see what we’re capable of.”

Another world record was beckoning in Hosszu’s next event, the 100m backstroke. After finishing just .15 outside the record in the heats, the record looked set to fall but she was a little slower tonight and finished in 55.77, with Daryna Zevina (57.52) of Ukraine taking her third silver of the meet, with Colombia’s Carolina Colorado Henao finishing with the bronze.

Hosszu then backed up to win the 200m butterfly in 2:04.68, before her final gold of the meet in the 100 IM . She finished well outside her record from this morning in 57.75, with Alia Atkinson in second and Caitlin Leverenz taking bronze.

Her last event, the 50m butterfly, proved that she isn’t invincible when she had to settle for bronze (26.14) behind Netherland’s Inge Dekker (24.59) and Australia’s Marieke D’Cruz (25.74).

Dekker also won the 100m freestyle in 52.01 to take her total to four gold to match the four she won in Doha.

Chad Le Clos

D’Cruz finished with the meet with four silver, all behind Dekker, but was happy with her performance, having been away from World Cup meets for some years.

Le Clos had a four year winning streak in Dubai to defend tonight and was not going to let anyone spoil his record. He went out hard in the 100m butterfly, and was under world record time at the 50 but couldn’t quite break it, finishing in 48.59, just .11 seconds outside Evgeny Korotyshkin’s 2009 mark. USA’s Thomas Shields finished second in 49.00, with Steffen Deibler in third.

Daniel Gyurta

Le Clos’ final event, the 200m IM was always going to be tough, with Australia’s Thomas Fraser-Holmes in good form having won the event in Doha, but Le Clos had his measure and despite Fraser-Holmes’ strong finish Le Clos held him out to win in 1:51.56, only .06 off the World Cup record. Fraser-Holmes finished in 1:53.77, with Germany’s Marco Koch in third.

The win denied Fraser-Holmes his fourth gold of the meet, having won the 200m freestyle earlier in the evening in a tight finish with Velimir Stjepanovic. Stjepanovic has signaled his intentions to go out hard early and he led at the half-way mark, but the Australian’s trademark strong finish saw him touch in 1:42.54 to Stjepanovic’s 1:42.88, with Poland’s Pawel Korzeniowski in third.

Hosszu

Fraser-Holmes said “I saw Velimir was ahead at the hundred and had to build, it’s lucky I’ve got long arms, I’m glad I got the win.”

Daniel Gyurta backed up after his world record in the 200m breaststroke last night to win the 100m breaststroke in 57.11, with Italy’s Fabio Scozzoli in second and Marco Koch in third.

USA’s Josh Schnieder repeated his performance in Doha, taking out the 50m freestyle, with Trinidad and Tobago’s George Bovell going one better than Doha to finish in second in 21.31. Finland’s Ari-Pekka Liukkonen finished third.

The men’s 1500m was won by Gergo Kis of Hungary in 14:53.06, who had to battle to hold off team-mate David Verraszto who finished in 14:54.69, with Tunisia’s Ahmed Mathlouthi finishing third. Kis and Verraszto were neck and neck for the entire race, with Kis just pulling ahead in the last fifty to take the win.

Hosszu

Spain’s Mireia Belmonte continued her dominance of the distance events, after winning the 800m freestyle last night she took out the 400m comfortably in 4:02.05, while Jamaica’s Alia Atkinson continued her winning form taking out the 50m breaststroke to add to the 100m she won last night. She finished in 29.12 ahead of Breeja Larson of USA with Austria’s Lisa Zaiser in third. Larson also won the 200m breaststroke in 2:20.02 ahead of Zaiser and USA’s Laura Sogar.

USA’s Eugene Godsoe took out the 50m backstroke in 23.00 ahead of Germany’s Christian Deiner (23.40) and Australia’s Bobby Hurley (23.41), but Deiner responded with a blistering effort in the 200m to win in 1:49.14 with Thomas Shields taking silver (1:51.92) and Hayate Matsubara of Japan (1:52.62) the bronze, with Godsoe in fourth.

Deiner was delighted with his win, “I went out hard and my legs went numb, but wow what a time! It’s a German record.”

In the final event of the competition, South Africa won the mixed 4x50m relay, with Austria in second and Switzerland in third.

The Dubai competition is the second round of the seven-leg highly competitive World Cup series, which commenced in Doha on 27-28 August. The competition now moves onto to Hong Kong, then Moscow, Beijing and Tokyo. The final event will be held in Singapore on November 1-2.
 

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