Sarah Sjöström ended her time in London on a high after an impressive 1:55.23 effort in the 200m Free guest final. Dominating the field from the start she split 26.71 / 29.38 / 29.45 / 29.69.
What makes this swim so impressive is the comparison to her 200m Free final in Shanghai. For the first 100m it was a mirror image of tonight's swim, in Shanghai she split 26.77 / 29.36 before coming back over a second slower in 30.31 / 29.97.
Sjöström has had a tremendous finish to 2011 and start to 2012, and her ability to bring races home has been one of the key reasons behind her success. With a full taper ahead of her, it will be fascinating to see where she can drop even more time in this event.
As a comparison, here are some of the main competitors in the 200m Freestyle and their splits (in bold the fastest split of the group)
Sjöström ---- 26.71 / 29.38 / 29.45 / 29.69 - 1:55.23
Franklin ----- 27.09 / 29.35 / 29.38 / 29.24 - 1:55.06
Heemskerk - 26.90 / 28.66 / 29.71 / 30.27 - 1:55.54
Pellegrini ---- 27.62 / 29.42 / 29.14 / 29.40 - 1:55.58
Palmer ------ 27.65 / 29.20 / 29.33 / 29.55 - 1:55.73
Barratt ------ 27.66 / 29.27 / 29.46 / 29.35 - 1:55.74
If you add in the likes of Camille Muffat and Allison Schmitt when the Olympics roll around, it is going to be a wild final.
She is on FIRE!
ReplyDeleteI will not be surprised if she becomes the biggest name of London Games with 3 individual golds.
I can't wait for her to try 200 IM after london
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that in Franklin and Sjostrom we now have some swimmers capable of beating Pellegrini over 200! I love how Fed never seems to aim for times, she just goes as fast as she needs to in order to win. With the youngsters pushing her along it's going to be an mental-fast final this summer.
ReplyDeleteIt's not always true actually. Fede went all out for the times in 2009 Rome.
ReplyDeletebut I agree, in London Fede will be forced to swim all out fast from the get go.
Good call. I suppose it was WR or bust for pretty much everyone in 2009.
ReplyDelete