Ryan Lochte wins gold at the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships
Ryan Lochte has done it again. The swimmer won gold in the 400 metre individual medley in Irvine, California at the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships on Wednesday, the 19th of August. Apart from his victory in this particular race, Lochte made it to the first spot in the U.S. 4 by 100 metre freestyle relay.
Ryan began the race with his technical butterfly stroke and managed to win the gold medal in a world record time of 4 minutes and 7.59 seconds.
Lochte’s time was better than Ryan and Tyler Clary took to finish in the second place in the heats in order to push Michael Phelps out of the final. Lochte finished the 400 metre individual medley in the shortest time in the world in 4 minutes and 8.77 seconds.
Since only two athletes can form part of the final competition from one country, Michael Phelps, despite being the fourth quickest had to swim the relay on Thursday evening in the U.S. 4 by 100 metre freestyle relay team.
The four swimmers doing the relay duty for the U.S. last evening included Michael Phelps, Peter Vanderkaay, Ricky Berens and Ryan Lochte. All swimmers worked it out to win the gold medal for America in a time of 7 minutes and 3.84 seconds. Runners up Japan finished with a time of 7.17 seconds while the Aussies clinched the third place.
While talking to the media after the race, Lochte claimed that he was lucky during the race as he had clean water to swim in. The swimmer opined further that he was given the biggest lead in the relay, which he really needed. On the other hand, Lochte clarified that he struggled to stay ahead of everybody else in the medley.
Clary clinched the second spot along with Brazilian swimmer Thiago Pereira who ended with a third place finish. The former finished the race in 4 minutes and 9.55 seconds while the latter took 4 minutes and 12.09 seconds to finish the race.
As for the Japanese team in the Pan Pacific Championships, Kosuke Kitajima and Junya Koga took home the gold medals in the 100 metre breaststroke (Kitajima) and the 50 metre backstroke (Koga). Kitajima is the four-time winner of the Olympic gold medal and has managed to win the 100 metre race in a time of 59.35 seconds.
The Japanese swimmer led the Australian athlete Christian Sprenger and the American player Mark Gangloff in this particular race that he won. He was pleased with his performance, even though he was not successful in cutting down on his time of 59.04 seconds in the heats.
The swimmer was unable to win the Japan title at the nationals and so he was extremely happy at this victory.
The fifth finisher of the 400 metre race was the Australian swimmer Brenton Rickard. American coach Dave Salo, who trained the Japanese swimmer Kitajima, challenged him to beat the record of 58.58 seconds set by Rickard.
Contrary to the challenge, the Japanese athlete said that at the moment, it was not very likely for him to swim at a pace of 58 seconds.
In the 100 metre freestyle of the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships, American swimmer Nathan Adrian won the second place ahead of world record setter Cesar Cielo, who finished at third place.
Adrian finished the race in 48.15 seconds, holding off the Canadian athlete Brent Hayden who won silver with a time of 48.19 seconds.
Despite being in the lead at the 50 metre mark, Cielo could not stay ahead of the enthusiastic North American swimmers. Cielo finished the race in 48.48 seconds. He was the 11th fastest athlete in the heats but the policy of short listing the swimmers from each country to take place in the finals got him through.
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