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BARCELONA, Spain, July 30. OBVIOUSLY, working with NBAC’s Bob Bowman isn’t hurting Olympic champion Yannick Agnel as he smoked the field in the men’s 200-meter freestyle event to start night three of the FINA World Championships.
Agnel, out under world-record pace at the 50 with a 24.07, overpowered the field with a 1:44.20 for the win. He’s the first man from France to ever win the event, and his time stands as the 12th fastest ever in the event’s history.
The finale proved to be a good one for the North Baltimore Aquatic Club as well with Agnel’s new training partner Conor Dwyer moving from seventh at the 50 to second overall with a sterling 26.59 final 50 meters to claim silver in 1:45.32. Those two have only been training together for a few months, and Bowman only recently came out of a post-Olympics post-Phelps sabbatical and demonstrated he is still a legendary coach with the outcome tonight.
Russia’s Danila Izotov snuck past defending champion Ryan Lochte for bronze, 1:45.59 to 1:45.64, as Lochte didn’t have the same type of speed that he used to win in 2011. Japan’s Kosuke Hagino, who has a Phelpsian schedule this week, wound up with a fifth-place time of 1:45.94.
Lochte had been looking to become just the fourth man to repeat in the event along with Michael Gross, Ian Thorpe and Michael Phelps, but couldn’t keep up with the medalists tonight.
Great Britain’s Robert Renwick (1:46.52), Australia’s Cameron McEvoy (1:46.63) and Australia’s Thomas Fraser-Holmes (1:47.11) also competed in the championship field.
