The Hindu : Sport / Swimming : Ilchenko simply superb

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 21, 2007
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Sport - Swimming

Ilchenko simply superb

MELBOURNE: Russian swimmer Larisa Ilchenko picked up her second open water gold medal of the World championships on Tuesday ignoring the pain of jellyfish stings to edge Britain's Cassandra Patten in the 10km race.

Ilchenko and Patten were swimming stroke-for-stroke as they rounded the last buoy off St. Kilda beach, but the Russian nudged ahead in the final 100 metres. She finished with a time of 2:03:57.9 seconds.

Patten was about a body length behind, crossing in 2:03:58.9 secs. Australia's Kate Brookes-Peterson was right in the mix, as well, taking the bronze in 2:03:59.5 secs.

Ilchenko began the World championships with her fourth straight title in the 5k. She doubled up by defending her title in the 10k.

American Chloe Sutton got a rough introduction to the sport. In addition to the jellyfish stings, she had her goggles knocked off at the first feeding station and had to hang on a buoy until a worker sent out another pair. She lost valuable time and finished far behind the lead pack. Sutton was in tears when she made it the beach. ``I tried to catch back up, but I just couldn't do it,'' she said. ``I was going it alone and I got stung a lot.''

Midway through the event, a course marker came loose just as the swimmers approached. The inflatable buoy started to float away and had to be retrieved by a worker on a jet ski. The race went on without incident.

Elsewhere on Tuesday, two Chinese divers led the men's 1m springboard preliminaries. Luo Yutong upstaged his World No.1-ranked teammate He Chong by a big margin — 466.50 points to 423.30 — to give Luo a good chance of upsetting He in Wednesday's semifinals and final.

Russian dominance of synchronized swimming continued, with its team scoring 99.000 points on Tuesday to qualify first for the team free preliminaries final on Saturday.

The Russians already have two gold medals in two events in Melbourne — Natalia Ischenko in the new solo technical event and in the team free combination.

In opening men's waterpolo play, defending champions Serbia dominated its match against Germany, but suffered a late lapse. Aleksandar Sapic scored four goals and Aleksandar Ciric had three as the Serbians held out a late German rally to win 11-7.

The results: Men: Waterpolo: Preliminaries: Group `A': Italy 20 bt Japan 6; Spain 15 bt China 7. Group `B': Cuba 7 drew with New Zealand 7. Group `C': USA 9 bt the Netherlands 7; Greece 10 bt Russia 7. Group `D': Canada 9 bt Romania 8; Hungary 21 bt New Zealand 5.

Women: 10km final: 1. Larisa Ilchenko (Rus) 2:03:57.9s; 2. Cassandra Patten (Gbr) 2:03:58.9;

3. Kate Brookes-Petersen (Aus) 2:03:59.5.

Technical duet synchronised swimming final: 1. Anastasia Davydova/ Anastasia Ermakova (Rus) 98.833 points; 2. Gemma Mengual Civil/ Paola Sanchez (Esp) 97.500; 3. Saho Harada/ Emiko Suzuki (Jpn) 97.167. — Agencies

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