Speed EnduranceTop Performers
Femke Heemskerk - 100m Free - 51.96, 200m Free - 1:52.42, 100m Back - 57.72
The star of the meet. Heemskerk destroyed a quality field in both the 100 and 200m Freestyle. She became the 3rd fastest woman ever over 200m Free and moved up to 8th all-time in the 100m Free. Heemskerk also smoked a 57.72 to win the 100m Back in the 6th fastest time of the year (notably ahead of Natalie Coughlin's best effort of 2010 so far).
Now, if only Heemskerk had some other lightning quick Dutch female sprinters to swim a relay with...
Dana Vollmer - 100m Fly - 55.72, 100m Free - 52.50, 200m Free - 1:53.67, 50m Fly 25.74
If Heemskerk takes the prize for swimmer of the meet, Vollmer just about takes performance of the meet for her 100m Fly effort of 55.72. Just 0.54 away from Diane Bui Duyet's World Record, Vollmer became the 3rd fastest ever in the event. She let Therese Alshammar take the race out (25.9 to her 27.3) but came back in an incredible 28.29. Bear in mind that most swimmers get faster as the World Cup series progresses, there might be more still to come from Vollmer.
Thiago Pereira - 200m IM - 1:52.81, 400m IM - 4:02.83, 100m IM - 52.59
No surprise that Thiago Pereira swam fast, he's been lights out throughout the entire SC season so far. Once again his best performance came in the 200m IM where he was under World Record pace by 0.37 at the 150m mark. Unfortunately he couldn't match the suited speed of Darian Townsend, an excellent Freestyler, on the final 50m, however he did come back faster than in Rio where he swam 1:52.72. (In Rio he was even faster at 150m - 0.83 seconds under WR pace).
As mentioned before... Pereira is getting close to Townsend's WR and could break it... Ryan Lochte could smash it.
A full set of results can be found here.
(Moscow World Cup starts tomorrow. Results will be here)
Correction: Ryan Lochte WILL smash it.
ReplyDeleteNot gonna lie, though, when Pereira was under world record pace, I got really excited, watching the race live. Feeling I haven't felt in a while!
Vollmer's splitting in the 100 fly wasn't quite as impressive as it appears. When she touched at the 50, her hands didn't trigger the touch-pad, so the 27.2 was when her feet hit it to push off. So she didn't make up as much ground as it looked like. She and Alshammar were even with 10 meters left, and even 5 meters left, but Alshammar died really bad and had an awful finish.
Yh, Alshammar split 25.9s so Vollmer could not have gone 27.2s, also i am shocked at what Heemskerk is doing, 1.57.2s & 54.0s LC and 1.52.4 & 51.9S SC!!! Where was that all summer, she had great underwaters though, outdone Vollmer underwater on the way home and Vollmer is powerful underwater.
ReplyDeleteHas antbody heard of another EUR vs USA duel, i heard there was going to be another, and could You Imagine the European 4x100m Womens team options, Kromowidjojo,Halsall,Steffen,Heemskerk,Veldhuis,Sjostroem etc. I would love to see that team!
Beat Netherlands in 4x100 free with ALL the stars in top shape Kromowidjojo,Heemskerk,Veldhuis and Dekker will be almost impossible.They are light years ahead (The Great)US Team.With all the four in Shangai, there´s no competition against them.
ReplyDeleteI doubt Pereira will go under 1.52 mark, but who knows?
"Has antbody heard of another EUR vs USA duel, i heard there was going to be another"
ReplyDeleteThe last one was rubbish because they only had the UK, Germany and Italy in the "Europe" team. Plus a number of big stars like Steffen, Biedermann and Pellegrini declined to take part.
Unsurprisingly the US totally demolished that "Europe" team. Ideally I'd like to see the top swimmers of all Europe invited, and then we might actually have a competitive meet.
EUR vs USA duel is not happening this year, although there is one planned for 2011 in America. I couldn't find out whether it would be SCM/SCY/LCM, all of Europe/just a few countries etc. but either way, good news.
ReplyDeleteAt the duel in Swansea, British Swimming announced there would be another GER v GBR duel in 2011 in Germany but that hasn't been confirmed yet.
I wouldn't say the last one was rubbish, but it was certainly too one-sided. If Europe had their strongest team, I believe they would have won.
ReplyDeletehttp://speedendurance.blogspot.com/2009/12/duel-in-pool-re-think.html
(The very first post on Speed Endurance)
I thought it was rubbish because it wasn't even close to a real competition. It wasn't much fun for me as a European viewer and I much preferred watching the Europeans and the Commonwealth Games.
ReplyDeleteJust curious - how can you say Europe would have won with their strongest team when the US wins against the whole world at the Olympics??
Also, I wondered why Steffen, Pellegrini and Biedermann turned it down. It looked like a snub to me (even though they had excuses).
ReplyDeleteAnswers to anonymous
ReplyDeleteWell 2009 worlds speak volumes for me, results are as follows:
Gold Silver Bronze
USA 10 6 6 22
EUR 17 20 18 55
Pretty conclusive in Europes favour, and you would have to add Europes relay power combined, For me when both continents peak Europe are top dog at this time.