BERLIN, Germany, November 16. SOUTH Africa's Cameron van der Burgh and Australia's Marieke Guehrer clinched the overall points awards in the FINA World Cup circuit this year.
van der Burgh confirmed the successful tradition of his country in the recent history of the FINA World Cup, by becoming the new overall winner of this year's competition in the men's category.
After the seventh and last meet of the series in Berlin, van der Burgh concluded with a total of 192 points and will take home the US$ 100,000 prize money allocated for the winner of the series.
Peter Marshall of the U.S., third before Berlin, was the second-best performer (40 points) in the German capital, and still picked up a bonus (20 points) for his world record in the 100 backstroke. He finished in the second overall position, with 133 points and US$ 50,000 of prize money. Randall Bal of the U.S., 2007 winner and fifth before the last meet, also benefited from his world record bonus in the 50 back and managed to climb to the third overall place, with 129 points for US$ 30,000.
In the women's rankings, Guehrer was also rewarded for her regularity, as she attended all the seven meets of the series, and grabbed first place with 199 points. Before Berlin, she was closely followed by 2007 World Cup winner Therese Alshammar of Sweden, who needed to be the best performer with a world record in this last meet to beat Guehrer.
In the 50 butterfly, an event in which Alshammar had set a world record (25.31) in Stockholm, it was Guehrer who established a global standard in 24.99 for the best women's performance in Berlin, ending with Alshammar's hopes for the overall victory. Alshammar came up short of defending her title with a second-place tally of 137 points. The third-place swimmer of the overall classification was South African Kathryn Meaklim, who earned 78 points.
A total of 12 world records were established in this edition of the World Cup, the best outcome since the 2001/2002 edition – where a maximum number of 22 world records were set. In the last five editions, the distribution of world records is as follows: 2002/2003 – 7 WR; 2003/2004 – 4 WR; 2004/2005 – 5 WR; 2005/2006 – 2 WR; 2007 – 5 WR.
Special thanks to FINA for contributing this report.