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- FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) - 10th April 2008
- Posted 10th April 2008
- Thursday 10th April 2008. World Records continued to be broken as the FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) opened up for the second night in Manchester. American Jessica Hardy, in her Speedo LZR Racer clocked an unbelievable 29.58 in the Women's 50m Breaststroke, shaving 4 tenths from the existing World record by Australian Jade Edmistone. The third World Record in just two days! Britain's Kate Haywood took joint silver in a tight finish with Australian Sarah Katsoulis.
Speedo's Kirsty Coventry claimed her second gold medal of the Championships in the Women's 100m Backstroke. Wearing the Speedo LZR Racer Coventry beat her own existing Championship record of 57:99 by over 8 tenths. The breathtaking swim ended in a photo finish.
Britain took its first gold of the Championships in the Men's 100m Backstroke as Speedo sponsored Liam Tancock swam the second fastest time in history - narrowly missing Ryan Lochte's World Record by under 2 tenths. After a disappointing start to the Championships yesterday, Tancock said "Everyone's fantastic tonight - I'm really pleased. I wanted to do something really good tonight and I managed to pull it off"
Fellow Speedo swimmer Austrian, Markus Rogan (current European Champion) lost his crown to the home crowd favourite, closely followed by USA's Randall Bal.
Ryan Lochte scored another gold medal for the USA in his Body No Arms (BNA) Speedo LZR Racer earlier in the evening. Lochte stormed the pool in 4:03.21in the Men's 400m Individual Medley (IM) narrowly missing his own Championship record of 4:02.09 which was set in Shanghai in 2006.
The sixth Championship Record of the week was awarded to Australian Felicity Galvez. Galvez, in her Speedo LZR Racer, clocked a blazing 25:48 in the Women's 50m Butterfly securing her place in the final and into the history books.
Championship records continued to be smashed in the Men's 100m butterfly. Peter Mankoc from Slovenia, who was sporting a Speedo LZR Racer skimmed 5 hundreds of a second from Adam Pine's record set only last night of 50:09.
The Speedo sponsored Australian Men's 4x200m Freestyle saw Kirk Palmer lead the race from the start followed blazing splits by Grant Brits, Nick Sprenger. The final 25m saw a nail biting race to the finish with Great Britain's Ross Davenport neck-to-neck with Australia's Kenrick Monk. The Australians, all clad in Speedo LZR Racers narrowly clasped the gold spot and another Championship Record, with Britain taking silver.
Other highlights of the night included a sizzling Men's 100m Breaststroke final with all three medalists coming in under the existing Championship Record of 58:14. Igor Borysik from the Ukraine clocked an amazing 57:74 in his Speedo LZR Racer swimsuit.
The Speedo medal tally now stands at 51. (19 gold, 20, silver and 12 bronze).
Truly inspirational swimming is rocking Manchester and there are still 3 days left to go!
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