Dutch delight as Steenbergen rockets to 100m freestyle title
Doha: Marrit Steenbergen stormed to her first world title in the women’s 100m freestyle at the World Championships on Friday as Tes Schouten delivered double Dutch delight with a 200m breaststroke gold.
Steenbergen reeled in Hong Kong’s fast-starting Siobhan Haughey with a blistering closing lap to win in 52.26 seconds, improving her Netherlands record at the Aspire Dome pool.
Olympic silver medallist Haughey, who won the 200m freestyle title this week, was runner-up ahead of Australia’s bronze medal winner Shayna Jack.
Steenbergen turned the tables on Haughey, who beat her for the silver at last year’s event won by the absent Mollie O’Callaghan in Fukuoka. “It’s crazy,” said the European champion, now firmly in medal contention for the Paris Olympics.
“Racing 52.2, I did not expect that. I just tried to do my own thing and not look at (Haughey) too much.”
The Netherlands celebrated another gold medal when Schouten smashed the Dutch record en route to the 200m breaststroke gold in 2:19.81.
Schouten embraced her coach and wept after adding to her 100m breaststroke silver at the meet.
American Kate Douglass, who retained her 200m individual medley title this week, took silver and Canada’s Sydney Pickrem bronze.
Hugo Gonzalez won the men’s 200m backstroke title for Spain in a fierce battle with Fukuoka bronze medallist Roman Mityukov.
Gonzalez touched in 1:55.30, a tenth of a second quicker than the Swiss runner-up, while South Africa’s Pieter Coetze took bronze.
Qin Haiyang, who completed an unprecedented sweep of the 50, 100 and 200m breaststroke titles at Fukuoka, skipped Doha but his team mate Dong Zhihao kept the 200 gold in Chinese hands.
Dong won in a personal best 2:07.94, 0.30 seconds quicker than Netherlands’ silver medallist Caspar Corbeau.
China finished the night on a high as world record holder and 100m freestyle champion Pan Zhanle helped the men claim a 4x200m freestyle relay gold in a thriller over South Korea. Pan swam a sizzling 1:43.90 in the third leg and his team mate Zhang Zhanshuo held off 200m freestyle world champion Hwang Sun-woo in the final lap to secure the win.
A depleted United States team took bronze.
World champion Cameron McEvoy earlier made a blistering start in his 50 metres freestyle title defence, clocking an impressive 21.13 seconds in the heats.
The veteran Australian swam a slower semi-final in 21.23 but is strong favourite and top seed for Saturday’s final ahead of Ukraine’s second-ranked Vladyslav Bukhov (21.38). Swedish swimming titan Sarah Sjostrom is on track for a sixth successive title in the non-Olympic women’s 50m butterfly.
Only one other swimmer has won six world golds in succession in a single event - Katie Ledecky in the 800m freestyle.
World record holder Sjostrom clocked 24.88 in the heats, the ninth fastest time ever, and eased into the final with a time of 25.08 to be top seed.
She now owns the 23 fastest times ever in the event.
“I feel amazing, it was great to go under 25 seconds. I didn’t really expect that,” the 30-year-old told reporters. “But of course I had a really nice feeling and a nice catch in my stroke, so it’s nice to see a good time.”
With Australia’s 200m backstroke champion and world record holder Kaylee McKeown skipping Doha along with the minor medallists from Fukuoka, American Claire Curzan qualified fastest (2:07.01) for Saturday’s final.
Having already won the 50 and 100m events, victory in the 200m would make Curzan only the second woman to win all three titles at the same worlds, with McKeown the first at Fukuoka.
With world champion Ledecky skipping Doha, Saturday’s 800m freestyle final looms as a battle between top-seeded German Isabel Gose and Italian distance queen Simona Quadarella.
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