Sport - Swimming   

Dedieu earns France its first gold

Reuters

French synchronised swimmer Virginie Dedieu, who won the free solo gold, performing during the final at the World swimming championships in Barcelona on Thursday.

BARCELONA July 17. Synchronized swimmer Virginie Dedieu earned France its first medal of the World swimming championships on Thursday. Dedieu's gold-medal performance in the solo competition left Russia's Anastasia Ermakova with the silver medal. Gemma Mengual of Spain won the bronze medal.

Another medal was to be handed out later on Thursday in men's 1-meter springboard diving.

Regular swimming events do not begin until Sunday, but several top athletes are already testing out the temporary pool in the 12,000-seat Palau Sant Jordi.

American Michael Phelps, holder of three world records, said he is getting smarter in how he handles his races.

"I've grown a lot physically and mentally," the 18-year-old said during a pool-side chat with reporters Thursday. "I started to put more weight on — 10-15 pounds (5-8 kg) — it's pretty much more muscle."

So far, Russia has been out-muscling everyone else in the medals table. Ermakova's silver in synchronized boosted Russia's leading medal total to eight.

In diving, the most stressful part of Emilie Heymans' gold-medal performance came after she finished competing.

The Canadian won the 10-meter platform on Wednesday after two favoured Chinese competitors came up short in their final dives.

Heymans, who won silver in 10-meter platform synchronized in the 2000 Olympics and gold in the 1999 Pan Am Games on the 10-meter platform, edged Lao Lishi and Li Na with a final dive that began with a somersault and ended with a twist.

Heymans went into the final in fifth place. Li and Lao were leading the competition.

"I didn't know the situation when I came out of the pool," Heymans said. "My coach told me I had a chance of winning. I started getting stressed about how the Chinese would dive. I knew I would get a medal but I didn't think I'd get the gold."

Heymans' gold was Canada's first of the championships.

Japan strikes first gold

Japan struck the first gold in synchronised swimming winning the inaugural free routine combination event at the world swimming championships.

In the absence of Russia, which did not compete in order to concentrate on its solo, duet and team events, Japan stole the show with an energetic and acrobatic routine to the Lion King that earned it 98.500 points.

The United States and host Spain shared joint silver with 97.333 in the event, which is a combination of the solo, duet and team in a single five-minute performance.

The Japanese team of Juri Tatusmi, Emiko Suzuki, Yoko Yoneda, Saho Harada, Michiyo Fujimaru, Naoko Kawashima, Chiaki Watanabe and Kanako Kitao earned a string of 9.9s for technical merit and artistic impression.

It is their second gold in sychronised swimming after Miya Tachibana and Miho Takeda won the duet title last year.

The United States also produced a crowd-pleasing routine to West Side story, but the home crowd gave the biggest cheer after the Spanish achieved their first ever synchronised swimming medal.

Stefanie Haeberli, chairwoman of FINA Technical Synchronised Swimming Committee explained that the new routine was designed to make things attractive to the public and easy to understand.

``The athletes are more powerful because their performing time is shorter than in other routines,'' she said.

The results: Diving: 10-m platform: women (final): 1. Emilie Heymans (Can) 597.45. 2. Lao Lishi (Chi) 595.56. 3. Li Na (Chi) 563.43. 4. Olena Zhupina (Ukr) 526.26.

Synchronized swimming: women (free routine combination): 1. Japan; 2. (tie) U.S. and Spain. Free Solo: 1. Virginie Dedieu (France); 2. Anastasia Ermakova (Russia); 3. Gemma Mengual (Spain).

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport

News: Front Page | National | Southern States | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary |

Stories in this Section

Cricket

• Rain washes out match
• Waugh to the defence of Bangladesh team
• Stats tell the tale
• Rashid Latif retained skipper
  
  Hockey
  
• Surge in popular response heartening
• India not to take part in 4-nation event in Japan
  
  Football
  
• Bagan, Sporting register wins
• Bhutia performs hat-trick
  
  Golf
  
• Montgomerie pulls out
  
  Sports : General
  
• Serena, Armstrong voted best
• All the winners
  
  Swimming
  
• Indians have a job on their hand
• Dedieu earns France its first gold
  
  Archery
  
• Indians remain in the hunt
  
  

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu