After two gold and a bronze, Taylor Ruck still seemed a little bit shy while talking to the press. “I’m really happy for medalling in all events, it’s amazing. (In the 100m free) it felt really good, during the first 50 I just had a hold-on for the last 25 metres. I didn’t look for beating any record here, I just hoped for a good time. However, beating the World Junior Record in the relay was awesome, just as the opportunity to race with all those fast people and finally came on top.”

 


Taylor Ruck (CAN) ©Andrea Masini / Deepbluemedia

On Day 3 we could see a couple of young stars who were just walking, or rather swimming in the footsteps of their respective nation’s greats. One is Australia’s Minna Atherton who copied Emily Seebohm’s Kazan feat, doubling down the 100m and 200m crowns in the women’s backstroke (today she clocked 2:09.11 over the 200m).

 


Minna Atherton (AUS) ©Andrea Masini / Deepbluemedia

“I wasn’t really expecting that, it was a big surprise as the morning swim wasn’t felt how usually does” Minna said. “Now I was just excited to clock 2:09, I didn’t expect that either, however, I felt really comfortable during this race.”

After all, it wasn’t too surprising as Minna admitted that Emily had given her a couple of tips how to become an even better backstroker.

The other hopeful came from China and with his name – Jitong Yang – it wasn’t surprising at all that he ruled the field over the 800m, just as Sun Yang did in Kazan (and in the previous years). Jitong had also received a couple of advices from China’s giant when they met recently and he proved to be a good student. After passing the 500m mark it was inevitable that this title cannot land in other hands, however, he had to take care of the excellent result from the morning, posted by Cesar Castro of Spain, but Yang could beat it by 2.02sec (7:55.19), keeping the Spaniard at bay. Russia’s Ernest Maksumov was just 0.03sec faster in the evening session than Australia’s Joshua Parrish, who also swam in the morning, so the bronze went to the Russian.

“I’m really happy with my performance” Yang said. “To speed up in the second part of the race is in my strategy, a bit of depending how I feel during the race but today I felt really strong. Though I was tiring towards the end but the excitement helped me to overcome it. When I met Sun this year, he encouraged us, young swimmers, to fight and never give up and gave advices on techniques as well.”

Older traditions came alive in the men’s 100m fly: the event, once ruled by Denis Pankratov, saw the two Daniils from Russia making the podium. Pakhomov’s win was never in danger, he broke the Championship Record (52.28) and gained 0.6sec on Brazil’s Vicinius Lanza who managed to finish between the two Russians as the other Daniil, Antipov came third.

 


Daniil Pakhomov (RUS) ©Andrea Masini / Deepbluemedia

Medal table after Day 3

AUS    5    3    0
USA    3    5    3
RUS    3    0    6
CAN    2    2    1
CHN    2    2    1
GBR    1    1    3
ROU    1    0    0
TUR    1    0    0
ESP    0    1    1
ITA    0    1    1
BRA    0    1    0
HUN    0    1    0
SWE    0    1    0
LTU    0    0    1
NZL    0    0    1

RESULTS

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