World Para Swimming Championships: Five World Records, Brazil Wins Four Golds on Day Five
On the fifth night of the World Para Swimming Championships in Madeira, Portugal, five more world records were broken while Brazil was the top nation in the daily medal tally with four gold medals. Two of the five world records were broken in the men’s S4 50 freestyle as New Zealand’s Cameron Leslie set a mark of 36.75 in prelims, knocking 0.27 off his previous record of 37.02 set in April, but in the final, it was Israel’s Ami Omer Dadaon who claimed gold. He recorded a mark of 36.25 to crush Leslie’s record, while Leslie went under the old mark to take silver in 36.72.
A few events later, Brazil’s Gabriel Bandeira took down the world record in the men’s S14 200 IM, his time of 2:07.50 chopping more than a half-second off the previous record of 2:08.02 set by Great Britain’s Reece Dunn last year. Three of Bandiera’s fellow Brazilians topped the podium as well, with Cecilia Eronimo de Araujo topping the women’s S8 50 free in 30.97, Gabriel Silva de Souza winning the men’s S8 50 free (27.19) and Maria Gomes Santiago taking the women’s S12 100 free in 59.62. Brazil now has won 16 gold medals, which ranks third behind Italy and the U.S., but the overall total of 41 is just one behind leading Italy.
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In the women’s S3 50 freestyle, the United States’ Leanne Smith tied the world record of 40.32 originally set last year by Italy’s Arjola Trimi, and the final world record of the day came from Ukraine’s Anna Hontar with her 32.75 in the women’s S6 50 free, edging out the mark of 32.78 set by fellow Ukrainian Yelyzavet Mereshko in 2018.
So far in Madeira, Italy has the most gold medals (19) and most overall medals (42), and they extended the margins with three additional wins on day five. Simone Barlaam set a European record of 4:10.78 to capture the men’s S9 400 free, while Stefano Raimondi broke the championship record with his 54.67 in the men’s S10 100 fly. Later on, Antonio Fantin set another meet mark with his 50 free time of 29.16, good enough to secure another gold.
A strong day for Team Great Britain saw Grace Harvey win the women’s SB5 100 breaststroke (1:41.19) and Toni Shaw capture the women’s S9 400 free in 4:45.55. Later on, Bethany Firth posted a mark of 2:26.69 for gold in the women’s SM14 200 IM.
Four other championship records went down, with Canada’s Danielle Dorris doing the honors in the women’s S7 50 fly (34.01) and Australia’s Katja Dedekind coming in at 26.96 in the women’s S13 50 free. Later on, Australia’s team of Timothy Hodge (S9), Keira Stephens (S10), Emily Beecroft (S9) and Matthew Levy (S7) took first place in the mixed 400 medley relay. They combined to swim a time of 4:29.86 for a two-second victory over Spain.
Ukraine’s Andrii Trusov swam a meet-record time of 29.28 in the men’s S7 50 fly before the Netherlands’ Rogier Dorsman clocking a mark of 56.65 in the men’s S11 100 free for another record. Another Dutch swimmer, Lisa Kruger, won the women’s S10 100 fly in 1:08.07, while Trusov’s Ukrainian teammate Oleksii Virchenko won the men’s S13 50 free (24.03).
Other winners included Germany’s Tanja Scholz in the women’s S4 50 free (38.09), Azerbaijan’s Raman Salei in the men’s S12 50 free (53.07), the USA’s Anastasia Pagonis in the women’s S11 100 free (1:06.87) and Mexico’s Diego Lopez Diaz in the men’s S3 50 free (44.85).