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World Championships: Torri Huske Sets Pace in 100 Fly Semis in 56.29
The women’s 100 butterfly at the FINA World Championships is destined to be defined by who is absent as much as who is present.
The absences? Tokyo gold medalist and reigning world champion Maggie MacNeil of Canada. World record holder Sarah Sjostrom. Aussie bronze medalist Emma McKeon.
In amongst those departures, the group assembled at Duna Arena Saturday sought a new power to assert themselves.
Torri Huske appears to be the leading candidate for that spot, leading the semifinals with a stellar time of 56.29 seconds. She leads a pair of Americans in the top three, with Claire Curzan third. The only hold-over medalist from Tokyo, silver-winning Zhang Yufei of China, was sixth in semis, albeit in a solid 57.03.
The field in Saturday’s opening day of Worlds included just four swimmers from the Tokyo Olympic final, minus the aforementioned swimmers and the exclusion of Belarus (due to its complicity in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) accounting for Anastasiya Shkurdai’s absence.
That opens opportunities for younger swimmers to emerge. Consequently, Sunday’s final will include three teens in Huske, Curzan and 16-year-old Bosnia and Herzegovina swimmer Lana Pudar, who qualified seventh.
France’s Marie Wattel, one of the Olympic final holdovers, won the first heat in 56.80, four tenths quicker than she was in the morning. She just edged out Curzan, also quicker than the morning with a time of 56.93 that was comfortably ahead of the field.
Huske bossed the second semifinal in 56.29, separating from the field early and comfortably stroking her way to the wall in the faster of the two semis. Australia’s Brianna Throssell was fourth in 56.96, .01 up on Louise Hansson, with both finalists from the 2019 World Championships qualifying without consternation. Zhang was sixth in 57.03, and Egypt’s Farida Osman rounded out the final, qualifying from the first head in 57.91. She edged Greece’s Anna Ntountounaki by .02 seconds.
