Melissa Franklin and Rebecca Soni win gold in Women’s events: Santa Clara International Invitational
Melissa Franklin and Rebecca Soni won gold medals in the Women’s events on day two of the 2011 Santa Clara International Invitational.
The Santa Clara International is the concluding stop of the 2010-11 USA Grand Prix Series, where the best of international swimmers compete with each other to warm themselves up before the 2011 World Championships in Shanghai, this
July.
The session conducted the finals of the 100m freestyle, 200m breast-stroke, 400m freestyle, 100m butterfly and the 4*100m freestyle relay in the Women’s category.
The session kicked-off with the 100m freestyle, where Melissa Franklin of Colorado stars-C clinched the title of the event in a winning time of 54.33 seconds. She was followed by Amanda Weir of Swim Atlanta-GA and Jessica Hardy
of Una Troj-CA, who followed her on the podium for the second and third positions, by touching the wall in a time of 54.61 and 54.73 seconds, respectively.
Moments later, Rebecca Soni captured the title of the subsequent event, the 200m breast-stroke. The 24-year-old Soni touched the wall in a meet record time of 2 minutes and 28.60 seconds. Amanda Beard of Tucson Ford Deal and Micah
Lawrence of Swim Mac Carolina followed her on the finishing wall for the silver and bronze medals, by clocking a time of 2:30.09 and 2:30.33 minutes, respectively.
Next was the 400m freestyle, where Una Nbac-MD’s Allison Schmitt occupied the podium for the gold medal, in a fabulous time of 4 minutes and 08.25 seconds. Elizabeth Beisel of Bluefish Swim Club and Alexa Komarnycky of Canada completed
their swims in the second and third fastest time of 4:08.57 and 4:09.16 minutes, respectively.
After a few minutes, Dana W Vollmer of California Aquatics astonished the Santa Clara crowd by earning the gold medal of the 100m butterfly event in a time of 58.22 seconds. Elaine Breeden of STAN-PC was only 0.62 seconds away from
her and finished her swim in the second fastest time of 58.84 seconds. Stephanie Rice of Australia followed them on the podium, by producing a time of 58.98 seconds for the bronze medal.
In the 400m freestyle relay, California Aquatics-PC remained dominant throughout the swim. The team won the gold medal of the relay event in a remarkable time of 3 minutes and 45.10 seconds. Australian and Canadian relay teams secured
silver and bronze medals behind California Aquatics, by touching the wall in 3:45.44 and 3:45.95 minutes, respectively.
The session concluded after completing the Women’s events, while the arena enjoyed noteworthy efforts of international swimmers who will once again compete with each other at the upcoming 2011 World Championships.
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