Heats too hot for Swiss swimmers
Tuesday's programme at the world swimming championships in Fukuoka, Japan, brought no joy for Switzerland with all five Swiss swimmers involved going out during the preliminary heats.
With the exception of 200m breaststroke swimmer Agata Ctaplicki, who was more than nine seconds off her own Swiss record, the team was at least able to look back on some reasonably fast times on Tuesday.
In the men’s 50m backstroke heats, Philipp Gilgen swam within four tenths of a second of Flori Lang’s Swiss record (26.80 seconds) but still missed out on the world championship semi-finals by almost a second.
After setting a new Swiss record to reach the semi-finals of the women’s 50m backstroke on Monday, Dominique Diezi was unable to repeat that achievement in Tuesday’s 100m freestyle event.
The 24-year-old Swiss-American finished her heat in a time of 57″50, less than half a second off Marie-Thérèse Armentero’s 15-year old Swiss record, but more than a second away from another berth in the semi-finals.
Bern’s Nicole Zahnd continued her return to form, beating Diezi in the same 100m freestyle heat with a time of 57″33, but also missing out on both the Swiss record and a semi-final spot.
by Mark Ledsom
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