The next final – the 200m free women – promised to be a fight between an experienced Josefin Lillhage and World Cup debutant of the Russian team Kira Volodina. The 22-year old swimmer clocked the best time in the preliminaries (1:58.40) but failed to improve this time in the final. “It was hard, she said in explanation, "probably I had to wake up earlier. It was easier for me to swim in the preliminaries.”

Christian Sprenger, AUS, scored a good time at 50m Breastroke (26.89). The podium became quite predictable as two Brazilian swimmers took the second and third positions.


Valentina Artemyeva (RUS)


The women's 200m breastroke was more of an intrigue. Tara Kirk, who wasn’t lucky to make the Olympic team this year, showed her World Cup ambitions from the very beginning. She scored 1:07.10 in the preliminaries while Valentina Artemyeva, RUS, came second in the same heat (1:09.61) and made the second qualifying time as well. The story of this swimmer is curious: Artemyeva was doing fins swimming for many years, then she switched on to swimming a year ago and broke a Russian national record at 50m breastroke in July. However, she didn’t make the Olympic team for 100m, as she was third at the trials.

In her first World Cup final Artemyeva tried to be close to Kirk (and she did it well during the first two laps) but that was all she could muster and it was not enough for the whole distance. The lack of experience played its role: Artemyeva missed all the turns. The last stroke of the Russian swimmer was quite disappointing: she finished third – Rebecca Ejdervik, SWE, touched the wall 0.3 faster.

Oussama Mellouli, TUN, made a decision to compete this year in every World Cup event and to swim as many distances as possible. He started with a victory in the 400m IM – quite a new distance for him - but unexpectedly he lost 400m free (Armando Negreiros, BRA, finished first only 0.11 faster the Olympic champion). The Tunisian started three times that day. His last event was 100m IM and in that Mellouli came fourth.

One more men’s event - 100m back – definitely became the most interesting part of the day. Stanislav Donets (RUS) won the race, scooping the highest points of the day (974) and his victory was remarkable not only by his time, but because he left behind the backstroke favourite of the World Cup races, Randall Bal (USA).

“I saw him (Randall) all the time and felt quite confident," Donets said. "We did plenty of work this season before the Olympic Games and started to work again a couple of weeks after. Frankly speaking, I didn’t expect the time under 51.0. Anyway, I’m happy to win my first international World Cup competition: before that I had the experience of home World Cup events – in Moscow”

There was a tough fight in men’s 50m butterfly between Nicholas Santos (BRA) and Evgeny Korotyshkin (RUS) – the Russian didn't touch properly at the very end and lost by just 0.02.


Oussama Mellouli (TUN)

MEDALLISTS

WOMEN
800m freestyle
Katheryn Meaklim (RSA) – 8:49.76 (799)
Isabelle Longo (BRA) – 8:55.34 (774)
Amanda Macedo (BRA) – 9:02.12 (745)

200m freestyle
Josefin Lillhage (SWE) – 1:57.05 (925)
Kira Volodina (RUS) - 1:58.58 (890)
Tatiana Lemos-Barbosa (BRA) - 59.58 (868)

100m breaststroke
Tara Kirk (USA) – 1:06.71 (922)
Rebecca Ejdervik (SWE) – 1:07.98 (871)
Valentina Artemyeva  (RUS) – 1:08.28 (860)

100m butterfly
Marieke Guehrer (AUS) – 57.51 (944)
Brooke Bishop (USA) – 59.13 (868)
Mandy Loots (RSA) – 59.18 (866)

50m backstroke
Fabiola Molina (BRA) – 27.60 (918)
Sophie Edington (AUS) – 27.79 (899)
Chanelle Van Wyk (RSA) – 27.84 (894)

200m IM
Katheryn Meaklim (RSA) – 2:12.50  (906)
Joanna Maranhao-Melo (BRA) – 2:12.78 (900)
Mandy Loots (RSA) – 2:14.78 (860)

50m free
Brooke Bishop (USA) – 24.66 (900)
Marieke Guehrer (AUS)  - 24.73 (892)
Therese Alshammar (SWE) -  24.96 (868)

200m backstroke
Carolina Henao (COL) – 2:09.12 (878)
Joanna Maranhao-Melo (BRA) – 2:09.91 (862)
Fernanda Alvarenga (BRA) – 2:12.51 (812)

MEN
100m free
Cesar Filho Cielo (BRA) – 47.18 (954)
Stefan Nystrand (SWE) – 47.70 (923)
Kyle Richardson (AUS) – 48.24 (893)

50m breaststroke
Christian Sprenger (AUS)  – 26.89 (964)
Felipe Silva (BRA) – 27.17 (934)
Felipe Lima (BRA) – 27.32 (919)

400m IM
Oussama Mellouli  (TUN) – 4:17.68 (837)
Henrique Rodrigues (BRA) – 4:18.02 (834)
Mauricio Torres (BRA) – 4:24.25 (-)

100m backstroke
Stanislav Donets (RUS) – 50.92 (974)
Randall Bal (USA) – 51.41 (946)
Leonardo Guedes (BRA) – 53.57 (836)

200m butterfly
Kaio Almeida (BRA) – 1:56.74 (868)
Sebastien Rousseau (RSA) – 1:57.36 (855)
Leonardo de Deus (BRA) – 1:59.43 (811)

400m free
Armando Negreiros (BRA) – 3:45.78 (898)
Oussama Mellouli  (TUN) – 3:45.89 (897)
Rodrigo Castro (BRA) – 3:50.56 (844)

200m breaststroke
Christian Sprenger (AUS) - 2:07.58 (943)
Thiago Parravicini (BRA) – 2:12.01 (852)
Alan Nagaoka (BRA) – 2:13.19 (829)

100m IM
Thiago Pereira (BRA) – 53.75 (918)
Henrique Rodrigues (BRA) – 54.41 (885)
Kyle Richardson (AUS) – 54.66 (872)

50m butterfly
Nicholas Santos (BRA) - 23.06
Evgeny Korotyshkin (RUS) - 23.08
Cesar Filho Cielo (BRA) – 23.29

Cesar Filho Cielo (BRA)