The first races of FINA/airweave Swimming World Cup 2017 in Berlin this Sunday morning were the Men’s 100m Breaststroke heats with Kirill Prigoda (RUS) touching first (56.53s) in front of Ilya Shymanovich (BLR/57.03s) and Arno Kamminga (NED/57.42s).
Sarah Sjostrom (SWE) clearly set the mark in the Women’s 50m Butterfly with 54.52s followed by Ranomi Kromowidjojo (NED/25.06s) and Aleksandra Urbanczyk (POL/25.46s). Another world record could be beaten and witnessed in Berlin in case the Swedish manages to go about two-tenths faster in tonight’s final.
Vladimir Morozov (RUS/46.26s) comfortably won the heats in the men’s 100m free, being the event with most starters of the first session. Kacper Majchrzak (POL/46.86s) touched second closely followed by Dominik Kozma (HUN/46.93s).
Danas Rapsys (LTU, 1:52.83) was the fastest man in the heats over 200m Backstroke followed by Radoslaw Kawecki (POL/1:53.06). Grigory Tarasevich (RUS) and Christian Diener (GER), both touched third after 1:53.11 minutes. The women swam directly afterwards over one fourth of the distance with two Dutch ladies, Kira Toussaint (26.29s) and Maaike de Waard (26.66s), clocking in front of Australian Emily Seebohm (26.74s).
Yauhen Tsurkin (BLR/22.81s) set the mark in the men’s 50m fly heats closely followed by Riku Poytakivi (FIN/22.85s) and Adam Barrett (GBR/22.99s).
Femke Heemskerk (NED/1:53.05) comfortably won the Women’s 200m Freestyle heats with Sarah Sjostrom (SWE) and Federica Pellegrini (ITA) arriving more than one second later (1:54.16, and 1:54.59 respectively). Rikke Pedersen (DEN/2:21.87) clinched victory in the Breaststroke heats over the same distance in front of Alia Atkinson (JAM/2:22.35) and Fanny Lecluyse (BEL/2:23.93).
The Men’s 200m Individual Medley was the concluding event of the preliminaries this morning with Kyle Stolk (NED/1:54.33) touching first followed by Kirill Prigoda (RUS/1:55.52), Clyde Lewis (AUS/1:55.53) and Kenneth To (HKG/1:55.56) clocking almost at the same time, which promises a thrilling final tonight.
It the finals (5:30pm) international top athletes like Chad le Clos (RSA), Cameron van der Burgh (RSA) and Katinka Hosszu (HUN) will finally race in Berlin. Since they got a wildcard for the finals, because of their great successes last year, they didn’t had to compete in the prelims.
