Americans show depth at shortcourse World Cup

The United States dominated the final session of the Singapore leg of the shortcourse swimming World Cup on Sunday, while South Africa’s Cameron van der Burgh demonstrated his class in the breaststroke.

US Olympic gold medallist Natalie Coughlin won her pet event, the 100m backstroke, and she also finished third in the 100m individual medley, with compatriot Julia Smit coming in first.

“I’m pretty happy with my swims especially the backstroke... It’s getting closer to where I should be,” said Coughlin, who is using the meet to prepare for the world shortcourse championships in Dubai in December.

“I was a little scrambled in the IM (individual medley) but I haven’t done two swims in one night in a very long time so it’s going to take some getting used to,” she said.

Coughlin, who took a break after the Beijing Olympics and only recently returned to top-level swimming, became the first woman in history to win back-to-back 100m backstroke Olympic golds with her victory two years ago.

Smit, the world record holder in the 4 x 100m individual medley, won the event handily and was more than two body-lengths clear when she touched the wall at 4min 28.72sec, ahead of second-placed Jessica Pengelly (4:36.27) of South Africa.

The 22-year-old American set her world mark of 4:21.04 in December last year.

Other Americans who won included Jessica Hardy (50m breaststroke), Peter Marshall (50m backstroke) and Elaine Breeden (200m butterfly).

Van der Burgh, the reigning Commonwealth Games gold medallist, completed a double in the Singapore meet as he won the 100m breaststroke to add to his victory in the 50m event for the same stroke on Saturday.

“It was a very good swim whenever you take a gold medal... It’s a good swim for anybody so I am happy,” said van der Burgh.

But the 22-year-old has decided to skip the next leg of the World Cup shortcourse meet in Tokyo and will return to South Africa to rest after an extremely hectic season.

“I am a little bit too tired and I really felt it in the last 10 metres so it was a bit of pressure (but) I knew when I turned at the last wall that I was far enough (ahead) to take the victory,” he said.

“It’s better for me to go home and just relax.”

Van der Burgh said the rest should help him prepare for the Dubai shortcourse world championships in December.

In the other highly anticipated races of the session, German Steffen Deibler won the 50m freestyle in a tight race with a time of 21.41sec, with world record holder Roland Schoeman of South Africa finishing second (21.43).

It was sweet revenge for the German, who had lost the 50m butterfly on Saturday to Schoeman.

In the last event, Swedish swim queen and world record holder Therese Alshammar won the 50m butterfly (25.24sec) with local favourite Tao Li finishing second (25.47).