Otago middle distance swimmer Erica Fairweather won the 400m freestyle title at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha this morning, qualifying for the Paris Olympics in a New Zealand record time and now He can call himself a world champion.
To date, no New Zealander has ever won a gold medal at the Long Course World Championships. Fairweather was also the most recent New Zealander to win a world junior title in 2015.
Fairweather ran a time of 1:58.41, making him the only athlete to break under two minutes. She widened her lead over second place Li Bingjie of China, who holds the short course (25 meter pool) world record in this event.
Fairweather's final time was 3:59.44, more than two seconds ahead of Binge.
“How crazy is that? I'm very happy with this and really excited for what's to come,” Fairweather said in a post-swim interview. “We just wanted to get to that wall first and we decided to go with it.
“World champions are all about how you show up, and I'm really proud of how I looked tonight,” Fairweather said of his main rival's absence.
“Did you hear the New Zealand national anthem? It was pretty epic! It was really nice to experience the New Zealand national anthem once.”
Fellow Kiwi Olympian Eve Thomas was also swimming in the final. It's rare for two Aquablacks to qualify for the world championships in the same event, much less in the finals. Thomas also set his personal best, finishing seventh with a time of 4:05.87, just 0.14 seconds behind sixth place.
In the heat on Sunday evening (NZ time), Fairweather led until the 350m mark, but was edged by China's Li Bingjie by 0.05 seconds in the adjacent lane.
In the other lane next to Fairweather was Thomas. Thomas considers the two long freestyle events to be the key events of her Doha Games, but has recently made significant progress in the 400m freestyle, finishing fifth, just 0.02 seconds off her personal best. He advanced to the 400m freestyle final for the first time. She also qualified for Paris in the top competition.
The previous best record at the Long Course (50m Pool) World Championships over the past decade was Lauren Boyle's silver medal at the 2015 Kazan Championships, but three years earlier she had won the Short Course (25m Pool) World Championships. He had won a gold medal at the championship.
Since 1994, the only male aquablack to finish on the podium at the world championships is Lewis Clairbert, who won bronze in the 400m individual medley in 2019. Like Fairweather this week, he won the bronze medal just after turning 20.
The prize money for gold medalists is US$20,000 (NZ$32,400) per race, but with the Paris Olympics just five months away, the three women's gold medalists from last year's World Championships in Fukuoka will gather in Doha. Only people. As a result, Fairweather, the only 400m freestyle medalist competing in Fukuoka this week, took the lead in the 400m freestyle, securing the seeding by 3 seconds, and was expected to win. She will be in Doha to help the women's 4x200m relay team qualify for Paris later this week.
At the Fukuoka Games, Fairweather became the fifth woman in history to run under 4 minutes in the 400m freestyle, winning a bronze medal and $10,000. But she was seeded more than three seconds early this year.
The World Aquatics Championships were first held in 1973, but this is the first time they have been held in an Olympic year. It was originally scheduled for November 2023, but due to the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics, last year's Fukuoka Championships had to be changed twice due to the coronavirus, so it had to be scheduled for the Olympic year. there were. World Swimming needed to honor its contract with Doha and had only this month to do so.
Fairweather also won two silver medals at the inaugural World Short Course Championships in Melbourne in December, making her the first medal of any color at the World Championships. She also competed in the 800m freestyle with Thomas on Friday, and there are high hopes for her to win another medal.
Fairweather is also the No. 3 seed in the 800m and 200m freestyle later this week, and Thomas also has a big match ahead of him. She is seeded in the top 10 in three events, including the upcoming 1500 meters and 800 meters freestyle. The two are also members of the women's 4x200m freestyle relay team.
On Friday, America's Katie Ledecky ran the 400m freestyle in 4:02.39, and Canada's Summer McIntosh ran the 800m freestyle in 8:11.39 over the weekend. He set the 2nd highest record of all time.
