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SWC 2018, Singapore, Day 2: Sjostrom edges Kromowidjojo by 0.01 in 50m fly, Morozov misses WR
One hundredth of a second! World Cup points leader Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden managed a narrow victory in the women's 50m butterfly by edging Dutch veteran Ranomi Kromowidjojo by 0.01, while Vladimir Morozov of Russia missed the 100m freestyle World Record by 0.01 on the second day of the FINA Swimming World Cup 2018 here in Singapore on Friday November 16.
In a battle against Kromowidjojo, the Swedish star, who kept a record 4 wins and 2 losses in the last six legs, stormed home in 24.63, while Kromowidjojo came second in 24.64 in the 50m butterfly.
"It was an exciting race that I always wanted to improve. In another competition with Katinka on the overall points, we are very very close. So I need to give it all tomorrow in the 100m butterfly. I was waiting for a perfect race in the 100 fly, but I messed up in Beijing and Tokyo."
"Hopefully tomorrow I can have a really great race and get more points," said Sjostrom now lleading the overall points with 321.
She is followed by Katinka Hosszu with 303.
Hosszu, Queen of IM, never looked back and breezed to take the 400m IM win in 4: 24.02. But in the field of the 100m backstroke, Hosszu was one step away from the podium as Kira Toussaint of the Netherlands won the gold in 55.92. Minna Atherton of Australia came second in 56.21.
Morozov sprinted a 44.95 for a new World Cup record in the 100m freestyle, 0.01 shy of the World Record held by Frenchman Amaury Leveaux set on December 13, 2008 in Rijeka, Croatia.
The previous World Cup record (45.16) was held by Morozov himself, established in Tokyo just six days ago.
"It is the first time I swam under 45 seconds, my best ever. I was so close to the World Record that brought me more confidence. Now I have a lot more chances to do that," said Morozov who led the overall points with 378 over his teammate Kirill Prigoda (222).
Xu Jiayu, Wang Shun and Li Zhuhao gave team China three big wins as Xu dominated the men's 50m backstroke (22.71), Wang won the 200m IM in 1:51.84 and Li took the 200m butterfly gold in 1:50.96.
"I enjoyed the short distance but my favorite would be the 100m. I hope I can sweep all three gold medals in the backstroke just like I did in Tokyo, " Xu said.
Rio Olympic champion Mack Horton ruled the men's 1500m freestyle in 14:44.22 and Ilya Shymanovich upset compatriot Kirill Prigoda in the 50m breaststroke 25.95-26.01.
Dutch veteran Femke Heemskerk had a one-man show in the women's 200m freestyle as she led all the way (1:52.57); Alia Atkinson of Jamaica clocked 1:02.74 in women's the 100 breaststroke, and she followed by Russians Yuliya Efimova in 1:03.58 and Vitalina Simonova (1:05.53).

FINA STATEMENT
FINA would like to underline that respect for its rules—concerning the establishment of a coherent international calendar, the protection of athletes’ rights, and the development of the sport’s structure and organisation—are of paramount importance for the promotion and popularity of our six disciplines on a global scale.
As the world governing body for aquatic sports, FINA takes great pride in its proven ability to deliver events of the highest quality for swimmers from all over the world. Coordinating events in order to ensure a coherent competition calendar adds an extra level of complexity and this is a key criterion for FINA’s sanctioning of international competitions.
The project of the Italian Swimming Federation to organise a swimming competition in Turin at short notice did not meet all the necessary FINA rulebook requirements. These requirements are in place to ensure that international competitions provide the best possible conditions to all participating athletes while maintaining a healthy calendar.
The FINA competition calendar has evolved over many years through the active participation and collaboration of the National Federations. Changes to the calendar, received on short notice, are not consistent with FINA’s long-standing agreements and precedents, and undermine existing high-level competitions.
Aquatics athletes are at the core of FINA’s activities. They fully deserve all our respect for their effort and their devotion to the sport we all love. In recent years, FINA has been actively increasing recognition for athletes’ efforts at FINA events, by raising the prize money for those competitions, and by providing their respective National Federations additional tools for progress under our Development Programme.
On prize money, FINA can recall the 2017 edition of its World Championships in Budapest (HUN), where US$ 5.8 million were distributed to the best athletes, and the upcoming FINA World Swimming Championships (25m), where US$ 2.1 million will award the top swimmers in the competition. Concerning FINA’s Development Programme, the budget allocated for the different projects in the four-year cycle 2018-2021 will ascend to US$ 38 million.
FINA will continue developing appropriate business platforms to provide an attractive calendar of events, with the participation of the best athletes. Moreover, we continue welcoming any positive approach by a partner or sponsor to improve the value of the Aquatic disciplines.

Pellegrini: first month with Lucas
Pellegrini moved to Paris to train with new coach Philippe Lucas, former coach of the Italian’s rival Laure Manaudou. Pellegrini has been training since the beginning of February at the Largardère Centre where Lucas also coaches Amaury Leveaux and Benjamin Stasiulis. Pellegrini said she would return to Verona to make the final refinements to her preparations for the FINA World Championships on Shanghai. The Italian national team are in training camps: the pool swimmers in Fort Lauderdale, Flagstaff and Coral Springs in the United States and the open water swimmers in Perth, Australia.

Centurions Hungary and Australia battle out draw in second-place decider
However, by coincidence, it was also Australia’s 100th match at World Championship level and a draw with the country that has won more Olympic gold medals than anyone else (9), would have been unheard of some years ago.
Under the coaching of Croatia Olympic champion assistant coach Elvis Fatovic, the Aussie Sharks took the lead at 3-2, 4-3 and 5-4 and then later levelled at 7-7, 8-8 and 9-9. Campbell featured with five of those goals, including his fifth from the 10m line!
Hungarian head coach Tibor Benedek was happy with the draw that needed delving into the rule book and shovel down to the fourth tie-break rule to find out who gains second place. Serbia won the group with a 16-9 defeat of China.
In Group A, the main match was the group decider between Spain and Greece — the last match of the day. Spain disappointed the near-capacity crowd when bowing 8-7 after playing catch-up water polo for three-quarters of the match. Montenegro had earlier beaten New Zealand for four points and what turned out to be second place.
In Group B action, Croatia topped the quartet with an 18-0 romp over South Africa who had a goal disallowed in the final six seconds. United States of America had the better of Canada for second place, winning 8-7.
Italy swam away with Group D in defeating Kazakhstan 12-6 and Germany battled to a 9-8 thriller over winless Romania.
Final points:
Group A: GRE 6, MNE 4, ESP 2, NZL 0.
Group B: CRO 6, USA 4, CAN 2, RSA 0.
Group C: SRB 6, HUN 3, AUS 3, CHN 0.
Group D: ITA 6, GER 4, KAZ 2, ROU 0.
Quarterfinal qualifiers:
Sunday, July 28 (times to be decided):
GRE vs RSA
MNE vs CAN
CRO vs NZL
USA vs ESP
SRB vs ROU
HUN vs KAZ
ITA vs CHN
GER vs AUS

Water Polo Men: Day 3: GRE 8 ESP 7
Molina scored on extra to open the second half. Christos Afroudakis and Ioannis Fountoulis stretched the margin 5-2. Balasz
Siranyi scored from centre forward for Spain but Fountoulis scored on
the next attack, which proved to be the final score of the third period.
Marc
Minguell lifted hearts of the Spanish crowd, receiving the shortest of
passes (30cm) on extra in front of goal when Delakis gained his third
foul, to score for 6-4.
Mylonakis scored from deep right, catching with his right hand, turning and shooting for 7-4 at 7:11.
Molina nailed his third goal on extra from close in at 6:31 for 7-5 and the game was wide open.
Huge
defensive doors were erected in front of each goal until Minguell broke
through with a shot down the line into the bottom right for 7-6 at
3:32.
Greece called a timeout at 3:05 and the shot came after the
excluded player returned but Angelos Vlachopoulos had time to turn at
deep right and score for 8-6.
Minguell scored his third on the next
Spanish attack on extra for 8-7 at 1:23 and Greece went to a timeout but
the game entered the last minute as the shot went wide.
Spain gained
an extra-man play and shot, deflected over by goalkeeper Konstantinos
Tsalkanis. Spain shot again but it was collected by Greece with 30
seconds remaining and Afroudakis held the ball in the dying seconds for
the victory.
Spain had won four of the last five matches at World Championships.
Match 22: 21:30, Group A, SPAIN 7 GREECE 8
Quarters: 1-1, 0-2, 2-3, 4-2
Referees: Radoslaw Koryzna (POL), Mario Bianchi (ITA).
Extra Man: ESP: 4/8. GRE: 2/2.
Pens: ESP: 1/1
Teams:
SPAIN: Inake Aguilar, Alberto Munarrez, Ruben Do Lera, Ricard Alarcon, Guillermo Molina (3), Marc Minguell (3), Balazs Sziranyi (1), Albert Espanol, Xavier Valles, Felipe Perrone, Pere Estrany, Xavier Garcia, Daniel Lopez. Head Coach: Rafael Aguilar.
GREECE: Konstantinos Tsalkanis, Emmanouill Mylonakis (3), Konstantinos Gouvis, Konstantinos Genidounios, Ioannis Fountoulis (2), Kyriakos Pontikeas, Christos Afroudakis (1), Evangelos Delakas (1), Konstantinos Mourikis, Christodoulos Kolomvos, Alexandros Gounas, Angelos Vlachopoulos (1), Konstantinos Galanidis. Head Coach: Athanasios Kechagias.
Match Report:
FLASH QUOTES:
Christos Afroudakis (GRE):
“We played a very good defence, and our keeper was spectacular tonight. We have to be very serious against South Africa.”
Angelos Vlachopoulos (GRE):
“We play every match as if it were the final, always based on a good defence and today was not an exception.
We have to go step by step, our next target is to pass to the quarterfinals. It is a championship and we need to be very serious and concentrated”
Marc Minguell (ESP):
“It has been an awful game. We’ve played our best part of the game based on our individual skills but we need to play more as a team. Now is everything or nothing and we have to correct our mistakes and go on.”
Felipe Perrone (ESP Captain):
“It has been a weird match, now pre-quarterfinals we need to forget the last two games. We were only able to break their defence at the end of the last quarter. Now USA is completely different to Greece and Montenegro and there’s nothing decided yet.”
Daniel López (ESP):
“We didn't play well, it wasn't the game we wanted. We started playing with more heart than head and in the second half we did it better. There are no bad teams so we have to improve our attack in the next game and carry on. We have no doubts in our team.”
