Familiar faces topped the podium on the third night of finals at the Brazilian Winter Swimming Championships in Santos. No fewer than six individual South American records fell this evening to Brazil's emerging squad.

Flavia Delaroli broke her second South American record of the meet during the preliminaries of the 50 butterfly, stroking to a 27.50, which would have given her a win tonight had she been able to duplicate it. Just as with the 50 free earlier in the week, Delaroli wasn't able to produce the same speed at night, and Laura Azevedo swam right past her to notch a win in 27.78. Flavia Neto de Jesus, the surprise second place finisher in the 50 free earlier in the week to Delaroli, also cruised past her for another silver medal (27.85). Delaroli was more than half a second slower than her newly minted record, touching for third at 28.08. No matter though, as Delaroli's South American record missed the standard for Worlds by exactly two-tenths of a second.

The men's 50 butterfly saw Kaio Almeida take his second gold medal and Brazilian record of the meet. Tonight, the time was also good enough to set a South American record after missing by a tenth in the 100 butterfly last night. Almeida's clocking of 23.33 was nearly half a second ahead of his nearest pursuer Nicholas dos Santos (23.74). Almeida's time was nearly a full second under the standard for Indy, with dos Santos notching the second spot. Brazil has impressive depth in the sprint butterfly as the top 5 finishers would have all qualified for Worlds, all the more impressive when you consider that Brazil's top sprint butterfly specialist, Olympic finalist Gabriel Mangabeira, is not at this meet.

Joanna Maranhao showed her versatility in winning the 200 backstroke tonight. Showing no signs of fatigue from last night's titanic battle in the 400 IM, she powered ahead of the field to easily touch first in 2:12.47, more than two seconds ahead of second place finisher Fernanda Alvarenga (2:14.78). In what could be considered possibly her third or fourth best event, Maranhao also walked away with a Brazilian and South American record. Unless she surprises in a stroke event, Joanna will have to content herself with swimming the IMs at Indy. Her time here was roughly a second and a half off the qualifying standard.

Rebeca Gusmao bounced back to win the 100 IM after her shock disqualification in the 50 free, no doubt using it as motivation to power home here. Gusmao will notch her second event swim for Indy with her winning time of 1:02.53. Her heat time of 1:02.09 was also a Brazilian and South American record, no small feat with two of the world's best female IMmers inhabiting the continent. Second place went to Flavia Neto de Jesus, who garnered her third silver of the meet with a time of 1:04.41, but still no qualifying time for Indy.

Thiago Pereira is set to make it an IM hat trick after winning the 100 IM here tonight in a new Brazilian and South American record. Pereira hit the pads in a very impressive 53.72, a second and a half ahead of the qualifying time for Indy. Even though he was more than a body length back, second place finisher Fernando da Silva just narrowly missed a swim at Worlds with his clocking of 55.39.

Though Brazil is a major power in sprints, they have yet to show the same prowess in distance events. In the women's 400 free, Paula Ribeiro (4:13.60) won by nearly a second over Monique Ferreira (4:14.52), but neither woman was close to the qualifying standard of 4:10.51, or even the Brazilian record of 4:09.45.

In the men's 400, things were looking a little better--at least they were this morning. In preliminaries, Armando Negreiros nearly cracked the oldest South American and Brazilian record on the books. His time of 3:46.92 would have qualified him for Indy, but excitement got the best of him, and he finished 6th in finals. It is unclear whether selectors will allow him to go to Worlds just based on a prelims performance, but the best guess is that he will stay home. In finals, Juan Pereyra (3:50.61) and Bruno Bonfim (3:50.90) fought it out, and Negreiros, finishing sixth, was left to wonder what could have been.

Lucas Salatta notched the only other individual win of the evening, taking the 200 back in 1:55.82 over Guilherme Guido (1:56.28), who narrowly outtouched Brazil's ageless wonder Rogerio Romero (nee 1969).

Relays were electrifying this evening as both the men's and women's 4x50 freestyle teams cracked South American and Brazilian records, in addition to sensational leadoff swims.

The two Flavias, Delaroli and Neto de Jesus,led the Pinheiros A squad to a Brazilian and South American club record of 1:40.14. In addition, Delaroli's leadoff leg of 24.68 shattered her South American and Brazilian record time of 24.81 from earlier in the week.

For the men, Nicholas dos Santos was the clear star of their Pinheiros A squad, setting a new Brazilian mark of 21.32 on his way to setting a new Brazilian and South American club record of 1:26.80. dos Santos' mark was also a South American record, but will not be recognized because the record attempt was not made clear to the officials prior to the race.

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