Petra Granlund and Daryna Zevina shine in Women’s events: FINA World Cup – Post Session Analysis
Petra Granlund of Sweden, Daryna Zevina of Ukraine and Wang Junyao of China made their present felt to the aquatic crowd on the foremost day of the 2011 Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA) Swimming World Cup on Friday, October 7, in Dubai.
The World Cup is a seven stage FINA event, whose first stage is being organised in Dubai. The series gives a chance to international swimmers to compete against each other in their exclusive events and defend their international titles.
However, with the upcoming 2012 London Olympic Games, this series is of colossal importance, as the best of the world will swim with each other to know their shortcomings and enhance their skills for the biggest battle of sports.
With her exceptional swimming display on the first evening, Granlund became the media’s highlight as she captured two silver medals and one bronze in the events of 100m butterfly, 200m Individual Medley (IM) and 50m back-stroke, respectively. She ended second
behind China’s Wang Shijia and Junyao Wang in the freestyle and butterfly events, respectively.
After three podium finishes in one night, Granlund was on the top of medal tally list. Granlund took complete advantage of the absence of Netherlands’s Femke Heemskerk and Italy’s Federica Pellegrini, who avoided competing in the freestyle discipline. Granlund,
who failed to accomplish gold medal in any discipline, seemed blessed with the absence of these giants of swimming, which enabled her to score medals in all her events.
The abstention of Australia’s Felicity Galvez and Hungary’s Evelyn Verraszto in the butterfly and IM discipline, respectively, provided another chance to the Swedish swimmer and she was able to confirm her spot on the podium.
However, the second best rank was occupied by Zevina, who clinched a gold medal in the 200m back-stroke and silver in the 50m back-stroke. She took absolute benefit of the non-participation of the world and championship record holder, Shiho Sakai, in the
back-stroke discipline.
In the 50m back-stroke, the absence of China’s Jing Zhao allowed Japanese swimmer, Miyuki Takemura, to dominate the final of the event, whereas, Zevina ended second behind her.
Wang Junyao ranked third after the first session as she defeated Granlund in the 100m butterfly, winning gold medal of the event. She also ended third in 50m freestyle discipline, where she finished her swim behind Netherlands’s Marleen Veldhuis and Ranomi
Kromowidjojo. Junyao took benefit of the absence of championship record holder, Therese Alshammar of Sweden in the freestyle discipline.
The first day of the championship helped emerging talent to present their gruelling efforts in front of the arena and win cash prizes, but the competition will not be the same in the next stop of World Cup in Stockholm, where Australian and Canadian teams
have confirmed their participation.
In addition, many other giants of swimming, who avoided competing in the first stage of the series in UAE, have announced their participation in the European and Asian legs of the FINA organised event. These winners will face stiff competition from their
superiors and they will have to prepare hard to sustain their spots in the next stages of the competition.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
Tags: