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Ben Proud Leads The Way Into The 50 Fly Final
Ben Proud led the way in the men’s 50 butterfly to book lane four for Sunday’s final, five years after he won the world title at the same Duna Arena.
The Briton won the second prelim in 22.76, 0.01 outside the national record of 22.75 he set en-route to victory in Budapest in 2017.
Behind came defending champion Caeleb Dressel and Thomas Ceccon with the pair both clocking 22.79, the second Italian record of the day for the latter.
Dressel spotted the finish perfectly in the first prelim after Florent Manaudou had led for much of the race with Michael Andrew not allowing his teammate to get away from him as he booked his spot int he final in 22.87.
Nicholas Santos claimed the eighth and final spot in 23.04 at the age of 42 but there was no place for world record-holder Andrii Govorov, the Ukrainian down in 14th in 23.31.
Proud said:
“Today, being the first day of the competition, I’m just trying to shake out all the cobwebs after not racing.
“I find it funny to come back to Budapest, swim in lane six and go almost exactly the same time as I did when I won it five years ago. I’ve got very special memories of this pool, I love swimming here.
“Tomorrow will bring about its own challenges, especially going into the final first, that brings about a whole different set of challenges. But I came into this meet to have fun and enjoy it – if I get on the podium, that’s amazing, if I come eighth, that’s also fine.
“I’ve come here just to warm up into the year, heading into the Commonwealth Games and then building through over the next couple of years into Paris.
“That’s the thing about the first race, you get to see how your week is going to go – and I feel like it’ll be good fun this week.”
Photo Courtesy: omegatiming.com
