24 hours after her victory in the 100-meter freestyle, steffen entered the half-distance final at the short course world championships in istanbul with the third-best time. The 29-year-old swam 24.27 seconds on saturday, twelve hundredths slower than the world and european champion aliaksandra herasimenia from russia. "Herasimenia will swim a 23 tomorrow, and no one else here in the field can do that," steffen uber said about the top favorite.
Even before the final on the final day, the double olympic champion from 2008 drew a positive conclusion of the world short course championships: "I am very relaxed and happy that it went very well overall. I think I had another chance to grab a medal tomorrow. But I wasn’t going to bet on it either, because so much can always happen."Steffen’s club colleague daniela schreiber from halle/saale failed to finish in twelfth place in 24.81.
Lochte already broke another world record in the semifinals over 100 meters lay. U.S. Star beats slovenian peter mankoc’s three-year-old best by five hundredths of a second in 50.71 seconds. Lochte had already improved her own world record over the double breaststroke distance the day before. So far the five-time olympic champion has won four world championship titles in istanbul.
Olympic champion ruta meilutyte set her second european record. The 15-year-old lithuanian won the 100-meter breaststroke in 1:03.52 minutes, beating the best mark of dan rikke moeller pedersen, who was only three weeks old, by six tenths of a second. Earlier meilutyte had already broken the continental best mark over half the distance.
Another wunderkind of the london games came up trumps alongside her. China’s 14-year-old ye shiwen missed the world record in the 200 meters by just four hundredths of a second in 2:04.64 minutes. The world championship title in the 50-meter backstroke was won by the australian robert hurley in 23.04 seconds, and brazil’s nicholas santos won the 50-meter butterfly in 22.22 seconds. The US women’s freestyle relay team won the 4 x 100 meters in 3:31.01 minutes.
Steffen and schreiber were the only german athletes of the evening. In the morning yannick lebherz (potsdam) and christoph fildebrandt (wuppertal/uerdingen/dormagen) missed the semifinals in the 100 meter freestyle. Paulina schmiedel from essen also failed over 100 meters butterfly.
Theresa michalak (halle/saale) missed out as 13. Over 200 meters were the final run. "I feel really shitty here. The hall can also be totally forgotten. There’s a draught everywhere, it’s cold. You almost fall down the stairs after the race because it’s so steep, so everything doesn’t really fit here," said the 2011 european short course champion over half the distance.