2010 Youth Olympic Games swimming finals, China win relay
The finals of the YOG Swimming event took place on the 20th of August. Some of the important features of the day are mentioned below:
The Croatian swimmer Ivan Capan emerged victorious from the pool winning a gold medal. The 18-year old athlete anchored the gold medal for his nation in the men’s 100 metre breaststroke, holding off the Australian athlete Nicholas Schafar with a lead of 0.04 seconds. He claimed that he gave the meet his best shot and he is more than happy with his unexpected victory of finishing in first place.
Double gold was won by French swimmer, Anna Santamans, and the Chinese swimming golden girl, Tang Yi. They both hit the wall at exactly the same time and were seen congratulating each other at the end of the race. Both the swimmers are 17-years of age and clinched the gold medals for the Youth Women’s 50-metre freestyle meet. The girls managed to overtake the Swedish swimmer, Lovisa Eriksson, who was initially ahead of them and the Australian bronze medalist Emma McKeon. They held her back in the last three metres of the single lap race.
The most significant victory of the night was that of the Hungarian athlete, Boglarka Kapas, who gave a brilliant performance and won the Youth Women’s 400-metre freestyle meet. The 17-year old swimmer was seen to struggle and fight through the waters and elevated her initial fourth position during the first two laps, to the first place at the end of the race.
The most unexpected win was that by the Australian swimmer, Kenneth To, who managed to win a bronze. He was expected to add a gold medal to his bag in the Youth Men’s 100-metre freestyle race. He did start with a gold swim but was overtaken by the French swimmer, Medhy Metella, and Serbia’s player, Velimir Stjepanovic, after the 50-metre mark and he landed on the third spot and took away a bronze.
The best strategies were seen to be coming from the Chinese, which was evident from their victory in the Mixed 4 by 100 metre Medley Relay race.
No other country other than China showed wisdom by first allowing the 2 boys to start the race and then the 2 girls to finish. He Jianbin was the first to be sent into the pool and returned with a gold medal. He was followed by his team member Wang Ximing. The girls got the advantage of a four body length head start from this strategy of letting the boys start. The third swimmer of the Chinese relay team, Liu Lan, was threatened by the Australian swimmer, Kenneth To, and the French participant, Jordan Coehlo, but their plan was put down by the Chinese athlete Tang Yi. Tang Yi admitted that she could feel the pressure before the meet, but she survived it by not letting it affect her performance in any way and made her way straight into the water. Thus, she did not find it very difficult to take the gold medal, leading the Russian competitor behind her with a time of 2.77 seconds.
The bronze medal was won by the Australian team and it was the sixth one won by the team in this particular event.
The 2010 Summer Youth Olympics, now officially known as the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games (YOG) is taking place in the city state of Singapore from the 14th to the 26th of August. It is an international and multi-sport event especially for the youth. This sporting and cultural festival is celebrated in the tradition of the Olympic Games. The participation in this major event is spectacular as three-thousand five-hundred and thirty-one athletes of the age group 14 to 18 from 204 different National Olympic Committees became part of this event. There are a total of 184 events from 26 diverse sports in which the young players will compete against each other. Media coverage of the events and their results was provided online through social networking websites such as Friendster, Facebook, Twitter and Wordpress.
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