Another impressive swim by Mona McSharry came on the penultimate day of the World Aquatics Championships in Doha, this time in the 50m breaststroke as she booked her place in the final for the third time after building a healthy lead. .
The Sligo swimmer, who already has two fifth place finishes in the 100m and 200m breaststroke, has given himself another chance to compete in Sunday's final, with world record holder and defending champion Ruta Meilutite of Lithuania In the semifinals we won, we finished in 4th place.
McSharry, who started the second of two semi-finals in lane 6, had a sluggish start and appeared to be struggling midway through the one-length sprint, but regained his form with 25 meters to go and finished in 30.57 seconds. I placed 4th.
Meilutyte won in 29.42 seconds and will start the final as the clear favorite, but the first semi-final was won by China's Tang Qianting in 29.80 seconds, with the 19-year-old setting an Asian record in the process. . In the end, McSharry finished in 6th place with a score of 30.57 and passed the race safely.
“It's amazing,” McSharry said of his third final this week. “It’s really encouraging to be able to race back-to-back, participate in multiple events, and get back to the finals.”
Her effort came just 24 hours after finishing fifth in the 200m breaststroke, with the 23-year-old returning to the pool after completing her heats early on Saturday, clocking 30.72 seconds.
“I can run again tomorrow,” she said. “And the 50s is really just a splash and a dash, so it's a good one to end with. I think the hardest part is probably the transition from 200 meters to 50 meters. I'm more of a long I think I'm a distance swimmer. I like to glide, but we're making good progress. And let's see what we can do Sunday.”
[ ‘I love pressure’: How Daniel Wiffen is seizing the moment on the world swimming stage ]
Daniel Wiffen also competed in his third freestyle final in Sunday's closing session, winning four of four heats on Saturday morning to qualify for the 1500m showdown and home in 14:54.29. Once there, he plans to add to his medals following his wins on the course. 800 meters on Wednesday.
The 1500m freestyle final will be held on Sunday at 4:16pm (Irish time).
As it turned out, the third heat was noticeably faster, with German long-distance specialist Florian Wellbrock winning in 14:48.43, ahead of France's David Aubry. In fifth place were fellow German Sven Schwartz and China's Fei Liwei with a time of 14 minutes 54.36 seconds. In other words, only two players emerged victorious from Wiffen's heated battle.
Second place to Wiffen was Kuzey Tunceli, a 16-year-old from Turkey, with a time of 14:54.98. Despite losing his swimming cap in the final stages, he managed to outdo Italy's Gregorio Paltrinieri, 13 years his senior and three-time winner. The former champion missed out on one place.
“I tried to be as relaxed as possible and run at a pace that would allow me to recover,” said Wiffen, who ran a best time of 14:34.91 in the event. “I might have missed 0.8 points there, so I'm pretty satisfied. I was able to do what I wanted to do, and it was fun.”
“I knew exactly what my pace was. I think I'm getting pretty good at hitting a certain pace in training. I knew what I could get back to in the warm-up.
“I will approach the race with the same attitude, run at my own pace, set a good time, and hope to get on the podium.”
Wellbrock, a 26-year-old from Bremen, won the title in 2019 and also holds the short course record, following his gold medal in the 10km open water swim at the Tokyo Olympics.
Defending champion Ahmed Hafnaoui from Tunisia failed to qualify again, finishing 17th. The 400m Olympic champion missed all three finals in Doha, but also won the 800m in Fukuoka last year. Only 21 years old, he seems to have lost confidence in swimming just over five months after leaving Paris.
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