Alicia Coutts, Belinda Hocking and Christian Sprenger win gold medals at
Mare Nostrum Series
Alicia Coutts, Belinda Hocking and Christian Sprenger demonstrated their heart-winning swims at the Mare Nostrum Series in Barcelona, by conquering titles of their respective events.
Coutts won the Women’s 100m butterfly gold medal, touching the wall in an impressive time of 57.63 seconds. Coutts, who won five gold medals at the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, including the individual 100m butterfly, 100m freestyle and the 200m Individual
medley (IM), defeated the world record holder, Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden in the butterfly event. She was followed by Ellen Gandy of Britain and Sjostrom, who occupied the podium for the silver and bronze medal, clocking a magnificent time of 58.82 and 58.86
seconds.
Meanwhile, Sprenger captured a gold in the 100m breast-stroke category, Bainbridge earned the title of 200m freestyle and Hocking made a splash in the 100m back-stroke.
Hocking achieved the gold medal of the 100m event in a championship-record time of 59.81 seconds. She overwhelmed the efforts of Japanese and Russian swimmers, Aya Terakawa and Ana Zueva, who clinched the silver and bronze medal behind her, touching the
wall in 59.83 seconds and 1 minute and 00.06 seconds, respectively.
Next was the golden effort of Sprenger, who dominated the Men's breast-stroke swim to earn the title of the event, posting a time of 1:00.73 minutes. Ryo Tateishi of Japan and Alex Dale Oen followed him on the finishing wall posting a time of 1:01.01 and
1:01.06 minutes, respectively.
In the same way, Bainbridge conquered the Women’s 200m freestyle gold in 1:57.83 minutes, staying away from Jo Jackson and Hanae Ito, who touched the wall for silver and bronze medal in 1:58.55 and 1:58.77 minutes.
Coutts was satisfied with her effort, as she said, "My coach (John Fowlie) and I worked on not setting expectations coming into this meet and just letting it happen."
"I am really happy with my execution and am just trying to enjoy the great atmosphere here in Europe," she added.
In addition, the Australian swimmers were very happy with their astonishing efforts, as they are going to represent their country at the 2011 World Championships in Shanghai.
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