Chad Le Clos wins third gold medal in Men’s 100m IM: Day one – FINA Swimming World Cup, Dubai
The 200m butterfly world champion, Chad Le Clos won his third gold medal of the championship in Men’s 100m Individual Medley (IM) playoff, on primary day of the 2011 Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA) Swimming World Cup series. The two-day competition
is the first of seven stages of 2011 FINA World Cup series, while the meet concluded on Friday, October 7, in Dubai.
Le Clos, who qualified as the fourth finest finisher behind Yuma Kosaka, Masafumi Yamaguchi and Dinko Jukic, demonstrated a spectacular effort in the final round and dictated terms to his former qualifying swimmers.
The South African showed determination towards his third crown and devastated the efforts of Jukic for the third time in this session. His confident look over the starting blocks entailed his desire of winning the title of 100m IM event.
He initiated the race with a magnificent start, completing his first-half of the race in a time of 23.76 seconds while Jukic was second with a 24.55 seconds effort. In the second-half, Le Clos continued his sprint, where he ended his round in a time of 29.72
seconds to post 53.48 seconds on the board. With his epic effort, he remained 2.53 seconds slower than the World Cup mark of 50.95 seconds, set by Sergey Fesikov of Russia in 2009.
Similarly, he was trailed by Austrian swimmer, Jukic, who concluded his second-half in a time of 28.96 seconds, but remained only 0.03 seconds away from him, clocking a time of 53.51 seconds for the silver medal.
Later on, the arena experienced a laudable effort of Kosaka of Japan, who defeated his team-member, Yamaguchi, for the third spot of the race. Kosaka completed his swim in a time of 53.66 seconds and remained 0.46 seconds ahead of Yamaguchi, who touched
the finishing wall with an effort of 54.12 seconds.
The meet ended after the completion of all scheduled events for the first day. However, these competitors will compete with each other in the next round to secure more gold medals.
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