Lock in your Fantasy Swimming picks throughout the week as part of the World Short Course Championships festivities!
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, December 17. BRAZIL's Cesar Cielo enjoyed a strong cap to the year with a South American record in the men's 50 free at the FINA World Short Course Championships.
Cielo checked in with a 20.51 for the win to better his top-ranked effort of 20.61 from earlier in the meet that also stood as the South American record and the best time in textile. He moved to third all-time in the event, behind only Roland Schoeman (20.30) and Amaury Leveaux (20.48).
France's Fred Bousquet captured silver in the splash-and-dash with a 20.81 to better his second-ranked season best of 20.89 from the French Short Course Championships earlier this month. USA's Josh Schneider broke the ratified American record with a bronze-winning time of 20.88. That performance surpassed the 21.11 Nathan Adrian set in prelims, but came up short of being the fastest American in the event's history as Adrian's lifetime best is an un-ratified 20.71 from the Duel in the Pool last December. As explained in previous articles, USA Swimming ignored all techsuit times swum after implementing the techsuit ban domestically in Oct. 2009, even though times were posted legitimately under FINA rules until FINA implemented the ban on Jan. 1, 2010.
Germany's Steffen Deibler (20.97), Italy's Marco Orsi (21.00), France's Alain Bernard (21.20), Russia's Sergey Fesikov (21.23) and Italy's Luca Dotto (21.37) placed fourth through eighth in the finale.
