Naoya Tomita seizes Men’s 200m breast-stroke gold: Day one – 2011 Swimming World Cup, Singapore
One of the emerging Japanese swimmers, Naoya Tomita won the hearts of crowd by seizing gold medal of Men’s 200m breast-stroke on first day of the 2011 Swimming World Cup Series in Singapore on Friday, November 4.
The Singapore World Cup is a two-day swimming event and third last stage of the seven-stop series, scheduled by the international aquatics sport organising body, Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA).
The 22-year-old Tomita qualified as the fourth best swimmer into the final of Men’s 200m event. He experienced strong competition from his challengers, Germany’s Marco Koch and Australia’s Christian Sprenger, but the Japanese swimmer proved his mettle for
the title of the event.
Tomita gained a prominent lead over his competitors in the first round, where he completed his first-two laps of the swim with a timing of 28.24 seconds. He was followed by Australia’s Brenton Rickard, who covered the same distance in 28.38 seconds. Subsequently,
Sprenger posted a third best time of 28.52 seconds while Koch ended his first round in a time of 29.07 seconds.
The Japanese maintained his spot in the second round by posting a top ranked time of 59.85 seconds. He was followed by Koch and Sprenger, who reported a time of 1:00.54 and 1:00.73 minutes, respectively.
In the third round, Tomita extended his lead to 0.61 seconds over his strongest competitor, Koch as he clocked a time of 1 minute and 32.31 seconds. Koch cemented his place for the second best finish as he reported a time of 1:32.92 minutes to overwhelm
Sprenger’s 1:33.66 minutes effort.
Nevertheless, the German accelerated his swim in the final round, but remained just a touch away from the arena’s favourite. Meanwhile, Tomita remained 0.06 seconds ahead of Koch and submitted a time of 2 minutes and 04.93 seconds for gold medal.
He was trailed by Koch, who reached the medal rostrum for silver medal by producing an effort of 2 minutes and 04.99 seconds. Similarly, Sprenger stayed one second slower than his former finisher and ended third with an effort of 2 minutes and 05.99 seconds.
Tomita expressed contentment over his victory in the breast-stroke event and articulated his desire of continuing the same at the 2012 London Olympic Games.
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