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ROME, Italy, July 31. SERBIA's Milorad Cavic will be looking to redeem himself after a touchout loss to Michael Phelps at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in the men's 100 fly. Here in Rome, Cavic led qualifying with a 50.56 this morning at the FINA World Championships.
Cavic, who went on record earlier this week saying that he touched first in Beijing but blamed Omega on having a faulty timing system, will be looking to rewrite what he feels is a wrong. His time this morning is the fifth fastest ever, and included a 23.20 first 50, well under Phelps' world record pace of 23.83. His time also beat his national record of 50.59 from the Beijing swim.
Phelps, however, clocked a 50.90 to tie teammate Tyler McGill for the second seed. Phelps had a relatively bad first 50 with a 24.33, but recovered nicely with a sizzling 26.57 final 50. Summing Cavic's front half with Phelps' final 50 puts a potential world record at 49.77.
Australia's Andrew Lauterstein qualified fourth with a 50.93 just missing his national mark of 50.92.
Venezuela's Albert Subirats (51.02), Brazil's Gabriel Mangabeira (51.11), Serbia's Ivan Lendjer (51.22) and Germany's Benjamin Starke (51.22) qualified fifth through eighth. Subirats crushed his national record of 51.71 from Beijing, while Mangabeira dropped his national mark of 51.21 from May. Starke downed his German standard of 51.47 from June.
Japan's Takuro Fujii (51.24), Spain's Rafael Munoz (51.40), Slovenia's Peter Mankoc (51.49), Russia's Evgeny Korotyshkin (51.51), Russia's Nikolay Skvortsov (51.58), Great Britain's Michael Rock (51.65), New Zealand's Corney Swanepoel (51.71) and Kenya's Jason Dunford (51.76) made semis as well.
Fujii dipped under his Japanese record of 51.28 from February, while Korotyshkin beat the Russian mark of 51.55 he set in April. Rock became the first man from Great Britain under 52, downing his 52.03 from March.