Five more world records fall at the world cup in Berlin, for six on the day and 221 in 22 months.
Lethal Leisel is back. In 1:03.00 the Australian who took a breather in 2009 exchanged her open-back LZR for a compression zipper suit - a full body Jaked 01 - and hey presto: the 218th world record of shiny suit season, a standard that fell within minutes of the 217th shiny suit effort - a 25.25sec blast from Cameron Van Der Burgh in the 50m breaststroke at the Berlin round of the world cup. A little later came the 219th shiny suit mark, a 3:32.77 400m free blast from Paul Biedermann (GER), in which he and his arena X-Glide swam the last 100m 2.31sec faster than Grant Hackett's world-record pace.
The fourth world record of the session - No 220 since February 2008 and 112th of this year - fell to Shiho Sakai (JPN) in 2:00.18 in the 200m backstroke. Under world record pace at 100m, by 0.03sec, Sakai was 0.22sec inside the pace at 150m and just kept flowing all the way home. In 2:01.67, her teammate Aya Terakawa (JPN) took second, and in 2:02.12, Elizabeth Simmonds (GBR) took third.
Steffen Deibler (GER) claimed the final world record of the session - No 221 since February 2008 and 113th of the year: 21.80 in the 50m butterfly, 0.07sec ahead of Roland Schoeman (RSA), with Brazilian Nicholas Santos third in 22.17. The morning session had witnessed the 108th mark of the year, a 50.95sec effort by Sergey Fesikov (RUS) in the 100m medley heats. The Russian later claimed victory in the final in 50.96.
Jones's effort stood out, in part because of the suit and the departure from her sponsor, in part because of her absence, in part because of her ability to travel a rough road and find a way to stay strong. She had a great target: Jessica Hardy (USA) was 0.92sec inside world record pace at the 50m mark. On the third length, Jones hunted down her prey and came out of the last turn on a roll. With 15m to go she overhauled Hardy and returned to the spotlight she had enjoyed as world No 1 breaststroke specialist from 2005 to 2008. Back to keeping up with the Jones's, then, on breaststroke.
Jones had held the world mark at 1:03.72, off a 30.41 split, since April 2008. She went through in 30.05 in Berlin. Hardy took second in 1:03.30, also under previous mark, with third going to Moniek Nijhuis (NED), on 1:04.56.
Van Der Burgh's victory was eeked out of a challenge from South African teammate Roland Schoeman. There was little in it at the turn but the world long-course champion ploughed on the pressure in the last 20m of the race to win by 0.2sec. Schoeman's second-place 25.45 was just 0.02sec outside Van Der Burgh's previous global mark. Third place went to Felipe Silva (BRA) 25.70.
Paul Biedermann (GER), who took out Michael Phelps in person and on clock and Ian Thorpe on the clock in Rome at world champion back in July, added another shiny suited scalp to his career record: a 3:32.77 world record - the 219th global standard since February last year - in the 400m freestyle. The way it was "swum" highlighted the tale of two sports that has inflicted swimming in the past two years.
At 100m, 1.27sec outside of Hackett's world-record pace, Biedermann started to pile on the pressure. By 200m, the German was 1.28sec outside Hackett's pace. Then came the drop. Just 0.40sec outisde world-record pace at 300m and the suit, as it had in Rome, would now do the rest along with the swimmer - game over. By the end the damage was immense: 3:32.77. It came off a negative split. It came after Biedermann spent 45 minutes squeezing into his suit and thought that, having put on a little weight since Rome, he was not about to have a good day.
As things turned out, there was some disturbing news for him: his stunning time rated as 7th best on the list of FINA Points, behind several swims that did not get past a world record. The current points table is not worth the paper it is printed on - and change must surely be made by next world cup season.
So back to the race: you take the Australian with the meanest distance-event finish in history, a man with the biggest pair of lungs we can recall, and then you pace a race that leaves Hackett looking like a wimp: his last 100m pace was 54.33sec. Biedermann clocked 52.02. The same pattern took Biedermann and his arena X-Glide suit past Phelps and Thorpe in Rome.
The sport in which, in Biedermann's own words, allows a swimmers to "feel the same in the first 5m as I do in the last 5m" will be laid to rest on the last day of this year. May it rest in peace. 47 Days and Counting...
The incomparable splits compared:
- Hackett: 51.35; 1:45.40; 2:40.25; 3:34.58 (2002)
- Biedermann: 52.62; 1:46.68; 2:40.65; 3:32.77
Second in Berlin was Mads Glaesner (DEN) on 3:37.75, with Australian Robert Hurley taking third in 3:38.35.
"I was more excited today than at the world championships, because I didn't really know what was possible for me because of my injury," said Biedermann, who tore a muscle fibre in his left thigh and had to skip the Stockholm meet midweek. "Without the high-tech suits, it will be difficult to improve this record in the future. Tomorrow's 200 freestyle will surely be an interesting race."
But no duel with Michael Phelps (USA). "We surely won't see a great duel," said Biedermann's coach Frank Embacher. Indeed not.
For there it was again - the suited difference. Michael Phelps, the greatest swimmer who ever lived, finished fifth in his signature event, the 200m butterfly. His was a great effort in textile jammers, facial hair and on the back of less training that he might have done: 1:52.26, 0.01sec inside his previous best time, set back in November 2003 in Melbourne. No swimmer actually beat Phelps. Only swimmers and their suits beat Phelps. The race among those shiny suits went to Nikolay Skvortsov (RUS), in 1:50.58, ahead of Frederico Castro (BRA), on 1:51.64, and Nick D'Arcy (AUS), on 1:51.72, with Takeshi Matsuda (JPN) fourth in 1:52.11. Coach Bob Bowman swayed in time to Phelps's stroke, urging his charge on through the pain of it all, the focus not on the race but on the only swimmer prepared to place himself in 2010.
Bowman later said that Phelps would "get killed" in the 200m freestyle tomorrow. Of course, he also knows "no duel, no contest" applies under these silliest of circumstances. Biedermann and his suit must surely be aiming for the first sub 1:40 blast.
Back to today, and the 800m freestyle placed Olympic silver and bronze medallists in adjoining lanes, respectively Alessia Filippi (ITA) in four as world-record holder and Lotte Friis (DEN) in five as world cup record holder. But it was obvious from the blocks, as the Italian found herself 10m back by the 200m mark, that Kristel Kobrich (CHI) was to provide the bigger challenge to the in-form Dane. It was not only Filippi who wilted under the heat from go: her world record looked unlikely to survive as Friis raced inside global-mark pace. It was only in the last 50m that Filippi's 8:04.53 world mark proved a fingernail too far. Friis broke her own world cup record in 8:04.61, with Kobrich second in 8:08.02, and Filippi third in 8:16.94.
In the 50m freestyle final, to Therese Alshammar (SWE) in 23.34. That left the Swedish sprinter just 0.09sec shy of the world record held by Marleen Veldhuis (NED), who withdrew from the Berlin event because she has influenza.
Canadian 2007 world long-course champion Brent Hayden (CAN) looked the part as her took the 100m free win in 45.56. In morning heats, the 26-year-old had looked much stronger than rivals on his way home. And so it proved again in the final. Deibler (GER), who would end the session with that world 50m butterfly standard, went through at the 50m mark a touch ahead of the field in the freestyle final, but Hayden refused to be beaten and, as Deibler faded, dug deep for his victory over Stefan Nystrand (SWE), on 45.73, and Lyndon Ferns (RSA), on 46.03.
Sarah Sjostrom (SWE), 16 and already the world 100m butterfly champion and record holder, opted out of her signature event to focus on freestyle. The schoolgirl looked set to add to her accolades in a big way as she stormed ahead in the final of the 200m freestyle final. At 50m, Sjostrom was 0.65sec inside world record pace of absent Olympic and world champion Federica Pellegrini (ITA); by 100m she was 0.96sec inside the pace and two lengths later was hanging on to hope 0.04sec inside the Italian's pace. It was then that the pain of her early efforts started to set in. Sjostrom held on for victory in 1:53.77, keeping at bay the fast-finishing Australian 16-year-old Merinda Dingjan, on 1:54.61. Alexandra Gabor (CAN) took third in 1:54.97.
Pellegrini, meanwhile, raced for the first time since the death of her coach Alberto Castagnetti. At the Viareggio s/c meet, she swam a 1:53.80 200m freestyle while wearing a Mizuno polyurethane suit.
In a tight 200m medley final, Li Jiaxing (CHN) found the wall first to win in 2:07.34, just 0.27sec ahead of Whitney Myers (USA), who in turn was 0.04sec ahead of Theresa Michalak (GER). Other winners included Chad Le Clos (RSA) with a 4:02.18 in the 400m medley, Felicity Galvez (AUS) in 55.62 in the 100m butterfly, Aschwin Wildeboer (ESP), on 49.55 in the 100m backstroke and Marieke Guehrer (AUS), with a 26.09 sprint in the 50m backstroke and Melquiades Alvarez (ESP) in 2:02.67, a European record, over 200m breaststroke.
- In other news: Rebecca Gusmao, of Brazil, failed in her appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne and will serve a life ban as a second-time doping offender.
