Italian Gabriele Detti Uses Stellar Finish to Win 800 Final

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Photo Courtesy: SIPA USA

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The Italians are having a wonderful night in the Danube Arena in Budapest on the fourth night of swimming at the 2017 FINA World Championships. They started the night with Federica Pellegrini stunning Katie Ledecky in the 200 free final and ended the individual events by placing two men on the podium in the 800 free.

Gabriele Detti used a 1:55.68 on his last 200 to over swim Poland’s Wojciech Wojdak (7:41.73) and his Italian teammate Gregorio Paltrinieri (7:42.44). Wojdak and Paltrinieri had the lead at the 700 but Detti used a 28.33 penultimate 50 to draw even and eventually pull away to win his first individual world title. Detti won the title in a similar fashion to Pellegrini in the 200 earlier by sling-shotting by the leaders on the last 50 to snag the win.

The time for Detti is a new European record.

Norway’s Henrik Christiansen (7:44.21), China’s Sun Yang (7:48.87), Austria’s Felix Aubock (7:51.20), Germany’s Florian Wellbrock (7:52.27) and United States’ Zane Grothe (7:52.43) also swam in the final.

Sun was going for his fourth straight World title in the 800 as China had won the last four titles in the event with Zhang Lin winning in 2009 before Sun won threes straight. Sun did not have the endurance to hang with the medalists. This is Italy’s first gold medal in the 800 at the World Championships.

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Halim Yussuf

7 years ago

Looks Sun Yang is losing his long distance stamina.