“I'm so excited and of course satisfied,” he said. “I set a new world record! I have no idea how I did it; it happened suddenly. I just didn't expect it. Last Cup I did my best, I tried to show a good result but I had a lack of power. Now I feel better; I'm in better shape. I felt enough power to win before the heat. Now I understand I have to keep it up.”
The evening programme started with an interesting race (women’s 800m freestyle). As the race commenced no exceptional results were expected and the situation looked very comfortable for Elena Sokolova (RUS) who had the best qualifying time in this discipline. Sokolova took the lead with Kristel Kobrich (CHI) one body length behind. But in the middle of the race the swimmer from Chile came closer before overtaking the Russian at exactly the 700m mark.
Kobrich looked absolutely confident but mistimed her swim and in the very last leg Sokolova accelerated again and finished first just 0.1 faster than her rival.
The brightest moment of the day however, came later. As Cameron van der Burgh was still celebrating his record swim, Valentina Artemyeva set her first European record. As previously reported, this swimmer came to this sport just two years ago from underwater swimming, so this start in Moscow just proved that she continues to show solid progress. Artemyeva rewrote the European achievement of her compatriot Yulia Efimova by clocking 1:04.71 in the 100m breaststroke.
“I'm very pleased with my result,” she explained. “I didn't expect it. I'm very happy; it's difficult to imagine and to express all my excitement. I hoped to be among the runners-up and as a result I managed to win! This result is better in comparison with my previous results at the other legs of the Cup, but I must say that my rivals from Australia were very strong. I also want to thank the organisers.”
The Russian team couldn't show its best in the absence of its leaders. The double bronze medallist of the Beijing Olympic Games Arkady Vyatchanin missed the first stage of the season as he is still recovering from the Games, and also Yuri Prilukov, Nikita Lobintsev and Efimova were not present.
The host country garnered only three gold medals (from Sokolova, Artemyeva and Nikolay Skvortsov for the 200m butterfly) on the first day as coaches seemed to be more puzzled with the question of who will become new national coach (the name should be announced tomorrow but on Saturday the information was still kept in secret). This means that the team will prepare with a new coach for the next big competition – the Short Course European Championships in Croatia in December.
Both leaders of the overall World cup rankings – Christian Sprenger and Marieke Guehrer (AUS) got victories as well. Sprenger came second in the 50m breaststroke (he finished right after Van der Burgh), but took first in the 200m breaststroke with a very good time – 2:05.75 (985 points). Guehrer climbed the podium after winning the 100m butterfly (971 points) and was second in the 50m free.
The Olympic champion Oussama Mellouli (TUN) continued gathering medals at the fifth consecutive World Cup meet. His most successful competition took place in Sydney, where he won 6 gold in his 6 events and he was ready to repeat this achievement in Moscow. ?? started with gold in 400m IM then added a second victory for the 400m free, but unfortunately he was disqualified in the 100m IM at the very end of the day.
His total quantity of gold medals is 20 at a moment. Despite the disqualification Mellouli mentioned that he is satisfied with his swim in the 400m free. “I earned my best time and am very happy with it.”
Fabiola Molina (BRA) set a new South American record for the 50m backstroke with a time of 27.34.