The penultimate day of competition resumed in Santos at the Brazilian Short Course Swimming championships, but records were not as copious as in previous sessions with only one individual South American record set this evening.

The event was the women's 200 butterfly, the swimmer was Argentina's Georgina Bardach. The Olympic bronze medalist swam to a World championship qualifying time of 2:10.73, more than four seconds ahead of Brazil's Monique Ferreira (2:14.96), who would have had to drop more than two additional seconds to gain Brazilian representation in this event at Indy.

Men's butterfly is a particularly strong event for Brazil as had been demonstrated earlier this week in the 50 and 100. In the 50 particularly, no fewer than five flyers swam faster than the Worlds qualifying standard, this even after the fact that Brazil's Olympic 100 fly finalist Gabriel Mangabeira was not present, and Fernando Scherer, a world class sprint flyer in addition to freestyle, did not swim here.

This depth was again demonstrated tonight in the 200 fly as Lucas Salatta, already on the team in a few events, penciled himself in for another swim at Indy as three swimmers swam under the Worlds qualifying standard. Salatta's 1:56.87 was nearly a second and a half faster than the required time. How much is one-hundredth of a second worth? Ask Gustavo Calado. His second place time of 1:57.21 was good enough to qualify for Indy, but third place Kaio Almeida swam an identical 1:57.21 at an earlier qualifying meet, and thus will claim Brazil's second spot for this event.

Female breaststroker Mariana Katsuno looks set to take the breaststroke trifecta after sealing another win tonight in the 50. Her time of 32.63 was a new meet record, but exactly nine-tenths too slow to qualify for Worlds. Second place finisher Patricia Comini Romero finished half a second back at 33.17.

Like his female countrymate, Henrique Barbosa has already won the 200 breast, notched another win tonight in the 50 (28.18), and looks set to take the 100 tomorrow night. He has yet, however, to earn an individual berth for Worlds, clocking three-tenths shy of the mark. Second place went to Eduardo Fischer, whose South American record of 27.23 from 2002 would have been well under the qualifying standard. Unfortunately, tonight he clocked in at 28.23, and has been unable to find his winning form as of late.

The other individual events on offer today were the men's 800 and the women's 1500. In the former, Armando Negreiros redeemed his loss in the 400 after nearly resetting the South American record, winning in 7:54.01 over Matheus Ribeiro (7:55.20) for a new meet record.

In the latter, Poliana Okimoto won in 16:29.20 ahead of South American record-holder Nayara Ledoux Ribeiro, who at 16:31.39 was more than 15 seconds slower than her best.

The ladies from Pinheiros A squad set another South American and Brazilian record, this time in the 4x100 medley relay as Talita Ribeiro, Mariana Katsuno, Julia Leao, and Flavia Delaroli touched in 4:09.26, more than six seconds ahead of their nearest pursuers from Minas (4:16.75).

The men's squad from Minas fared better after a surprising disqualification from top=seeded Pinheiros A, easily the deepest team in South America. The Minas squad of Rodrigo Ferreira, Henrique Barbosa, Thiago Pereira, and Rodrigo Castro hit the pads in 3:36.59, exactly one second away from the Brazilian and South American record. Second place Unisanta was less than a second in arrears in 3:37.34.

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