Kirsty Coventry beats old rival to win
Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry vanquished an old rival and held off a new challenger to win the women’s 400 medley, then followed up with a victory in the 100m backstroke at the Santa Clara Invitational in the US.
Coventry, who won a gold and three silver medals at last year’s Beijing Olympics, set a meet record of 4 minutes, 32.15 seconds to win the 400m individual medley by nearly four seconds over Dagny Knutson, who is considered among the best of the next generation of US swimmers.
Knutson’s time was a personal best of 4:36.02, more than a second faster than fellow American Elizabeth Beisel.
Australia’s Stephanie Rice, who set the world record in winning gold over Coventry in the event at the Beijing Games was fourth in 4:38.08.
Rice, who won three golds in Beijing, recently completed a three-week high-altitude training program and said before the meeting that she was still tired and not yet in top form.
Coventry’s convincing victory in the medley and her backstroke victory, showed that she again will be one of the top medal contenders at this summer’s world championships in Rome.
The Santa Clara grand prix meeting, which concludes Sunday, is her last big competition before next month’s world event.
“This is definitely a good self-confidence booster. It felt good,” Coventry said. “Now we have another five weeks of hard training.”
Leisel Jones, an Australian who is a six-time Olympic medalist, pulled away at the end to win the women’s 100 breaststroke in 1:07.11. Jones, who broke her own meet record while winning the 200 breaststroke on Friday night, is skipping the world championships this summer to focus on her beauty school studies back home in Australia.
In other races, Japan’s Masayuki Kishida won the men’s 100 butterfly and American Ryan Lochte, the Olympic gold medallist and world record-holder, won the 200m backstroke. American Nathan Adrian won the 50 free.
American Dana Vollmer won her third individual gold medal of the meet in the 200 freestyle. She won the 100 freestyle and the 100 butterfly on Friday. – AFP.
