IPC Swimming World Championships Day Five: Finals

Day Five Finals of the Championships saw a sensational comeback for the GB squad, seeing them land several Golds, World Records and confidently swim their way to victory after this weeks poor start.

Ollie Hynd sensationally took down his brother’s five-year-old world record in the men’s 400m freestyle S8 as his teammates stormed to four Golds and two world records.

Hynd (4:24.32), who has had his eye on Beijing 2008 champion Sam Hynd’s mark for some time, said: “I wanted to try and get out strong and work that middle 200m where I was a little bit slow this morning,” Hynd said. “I think I was able to do that tonight.

“It felt great out there. So far I think it’s been the best meet of my life. I thought I was going to swim fast but you never know and I’m just delighted to have achieved what I have.”

The success kept coming for Great Britain in the women’s 200m individual medley SM6. World and Paralympic gold medallist Eleanor Simmonds (3:01.02) took gold in the event for the third consecutive World Championships.

“I’m so, so shocked about that to be honest,” Simmonds said. “I am so shocked about that time! 3:01! I’m so happy.

“I just wanted to show everyone what I was made of tonight and hopefully that’s what I’ve done.”

Simmonds put a bad start to Glasgow 2015 behind her, beating Yelyzaveta Mereshko (3:06.08) after missing out to the Ukrainian in the 400m freestyle on Monday (13 July). Germany’s Verena Schott (3:12.32) took bronze.

Completing the British haul was Sascha Kindred, who emerged Champion from a tense men’s 200m individual medley SM6. Kindred, who has competed at every IPC Swimming World Championships, set a new Championships record of 2:41.41 to take Gold. But he left it to the final 50m in this tense swim to overtake Colombian silver medallist Nelson Crispin (2:41.84). The medal for Crispin comes with a new Americas record. Brazil’s Talisson Glock (2:41.87) was third.We had the pleasure of speaking to Sascha ahead of the Championships, you can read it in the latest issue of Pos’Ability magazine.

After an excellent morning in the heats, Russia saw more success in the evening’s Finals. There was five golds and three world records for the Russians in the men’s and women’s 200m individual medley SM14 and a relay.

Having already brought down the mark in the heats, Viacheslav Emeliantsev (2:08.98) took just under one second off the world best in the men’s race once again. Dutch 2013 world champion Marc Evers (2:10.38) touched in for silver and Russia’s Mikhail Kuliabin (2:15.81) won bronze.

In the women’s event, Valeriia Shabalina (2:21.23) was the victor with a new mark ahead of Great Britain’s Jessica-Jane Applegate (2:25.78). The Netherlands’ world champion Marlou van der Kulk (2:28.65) had to settle for bronze.

There was a new world record in the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay 34 points to conclude another good evening in the pool for Russia.

The team of Konstantin Lisenkov, Adrei Kalina, Alexander Skaliukh and Denis Tarasov (3:48.10) shaved 0.62 seconds off the 2010 world record held by Australia.

Russia’s Alexander Skaliukh (59.62) won the men’s 100m butterfly S9, beating Italian world and Paralympic champion Federico Morlacchi (59.69) to the wall. Kristjian Vincetic (1:00.74) won Croatia’s first medal with bronze.

Natalia Gavrilyuk (1:02.19) made it double gold for Russia in the women’s 50m breaststroke SB3. The silver and bronze were taken by Mexican swimmers Nely Miranda Herrera (1:02.94) and Patricia Valle (1:03.17), with Herrera setting a new Americas best.

At the end of day five, Russia have taken their taken their lead at the top of the medals table back from Ukraine with 44 medals overall, including 20 golds. Ukraine trail by two medals overall and have 17 golds. The USA retain position with 24 medals, 11 of which are gold.