In the last session in Netanya, Laszlo Cseh took down the European and championship records by nearly half a second in the 200 butterfly final. He was the only one in the final to break the 1:50 barrier. With a time of 1:49.00 Cseh now has the fastest time in the 200 fly SCM in the world.
Finals started with a set of semi-finals for the women’s 50 freestyle and the men’s 50 backstroke. Ranomi Kromowidjojo finished first in both semi-finals and finals. She dropped quite a bit of time from 24.24 earlier in the session to 23.65, just a few tenths off the European record. Sarah Sjoestroem was not far off in a final time of 23.63 for second place.
In the men’s 50 backstroke semi-final Christoph Walker-Hebborn of Great Britain took the top spot in 23.35. However, in finals he was touched out by Poland’s Tomasz Polewka who posted a 22.96 in finals. Polewka was the only one to break 23 seconds.
Next, in the women’s 200 breaststroke final, top seed Viktoria Zeynep Gunes from Turkey ended up taking bronze in finals with a time of 2:19.73. This was a solid time drop from semis for her. Fanny Lecluyse won the event in 2:18.49 and Maria Astashkina touched second in 2:19.69.
The men’s 100 freestyle ended with a win from the Italian, Marco Orsi in a time of 46.05. Pieter Timmers was second (46.61), Sebastian Szczepanski was third (46.87), Phillipp Wolf was fourth (47.0), Glenn Surgeloose was fifth (47.21), Aleksandr Kliukin was sixth (47.38), Mindaugas Sadauskas was seventh (47.51) and in eighth place was Artyom Machekin in 47.50.
Sarah Sjoestroem took home gold and a new championship record in the 100 butterfly final tonight. She went 55.03 to barely break Diane Bui Duyet’s record of 55.05 from 2009.
In the men’s 100 IM final, Sergei Fesikov won with a 52.00, dropping a .19 from this morning. Yakov Yan Toumarkin finished second in 52.62 and from lane two Andreas Vazaios grabbed a third place finish in a time of 52.67.
One of the best battles for gold tonight took place in the women’s 400 freestyle where Jazmin Carlin duked it out with Katinka Hosszu for almost the whole race. Carlin ended up stealing the gold from Hosszu by just .03 seconds. Carlin clocked a 3:58.81.
After Cseh won the 200 fly, and after the women’s 50 free and the men’s 50 backstroke, the meet concluded with two relays. First, the women swam the 4×50 freestyle relay. The Netherlands won with the help of a killer anchor leg by Kromowidjojo (22.97) for a time of 1:44.85. Sweden followed in 1:45.34 and Italy took bronze in 1:45.73.
The men’s 4×50 freestyle relay concluded the meet and to no surprise the Italian freestylers dominated again. They won in a time of 1:31.71 to break the championship record. The winning relay consisted of Simone Sabbioni (23.29), Fabio Scozzoli (25.88), Matteo Rivolta (22.19), and Marco Orsi with a speedy 20.35 to anchor.
