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Jamaica’s Atkinson grabs elusive gold as US reigns
Jamaican star Alia Atkinson celebrated turning 30 by finally winning 50-meter breaststroke gold at the FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) yesterday, as the record-smashing United States dominated.
Atkinson’s landmark birthday was on Tuesday but she had to wait a day to really mark the occasion in imperious style in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.
When it came she lapped the opportunity up as Atkinson, the world record-holder in a 25m pool, stormed to victory in 29.05 seconds.
It was comfortably short of her world-leading time of 28.56, set in October, but was Atkinson’s first 50 gold after three world championship silvers.
“I’m really happy to finally get the gold in the 50,” Atkinson said with a broad smile
“There’s a lot of stereotypes about age, and I just turned 30, so it’s really cool. To see the 30-year-olds still able to do it...”
The US started the evening session of day two with a bang, setting a new short-course world record in the women’s 4x50 medley relay.
Their scorching time of 1:42.38 smashed the previous best time of 1:43.27, also set by the Americans, two years ago.
The US backed that up with victory for Olympic champion Ryan Murphy in the men’s 100 backstroke, pipping home swimmer Xu Jiayu into silver by 0.03 seconds and putting the US into the early lead in the medals table with four golds overall.
Xu had lost to Murphy at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, where, too, he was the runner-up.
“This time I didn’t perform well. My aim is at the long course,” said Xu, who was a gold hopeful in the event, having broken the world record a month ago at the World Cup in Tokyo.
Four became five golds for the Americans when Blake Pieroni, out in lane eight, took victory in the men’s 200 freestyle.
On Tuesday, the first day of action, the US men — with Pieroni on the second leg — set a new world record in the 4x100 freestyle.
Katinka Hosszu, a triple gold medalist at the 2016 Rio Olympics, grabbed her second gold in Hangzhou as the Hungarian triumphed in the women’s 200 butterfly.
Hosszu dominated the short-course world championships two years ago in Canada, carrying home seven golds.
But she was shocked in the 100 backstroke, forced into second by Olivia Smoliga to underline the United States’ superiority.
The all-powerful Americans made it a fifth gold out of eight up for grabs on the day when they triumphed in the mixed 4x50 freestyle in another world-record time.
Meanwhile, South African veteran Cameron Van Der Burgh announced his farewell by winning the 100 breaststroke gold.
Van Der Burgh, 30, winner of the event at the 2012 London Olympics, delivered a strong performance and broke the championship record in a time of 56.01 seconds before revealing he was quitting.
“It means the world to me. It is my last race, so I am extremely happy. The world championship means a lot,” he said. “It is the last one. It is sad but I am happy to end on a high.”
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