Shijia Wang upsets Hang Yu Sze in Women’s 200m freestyle heats: Day one – FINA World Cup, Dubai
Shijia Wang of China upset Hong Kong’s Hang Yu Sze in qualifying rounds of the Women’s 200m freestyle meet on the initial day of the 2011 Federation International de Natation (FINA) Swimming World Cup on Friday, October 7, Dubai. The FINA/ARENA World Cup
series is divided into seven stages, where the first leg is constituted in Dubai.
Wang faced stiff competition from Sze in the four-lap freestyle event. Sze had a comparatively stronger start than Wang as she showed more urgency in the first lap and posted a time of 27.27 seconds. Wang was unable to stand out her and completed her lap
in a time of 27.60 seconds.
The 23-year-old Sze continued her supremacy in the second lap of the event, where she remained almost one second ahead of Wang, completing her first round in a time of 57.27 seconds as opposed to Wang’s 58.17 seconds effort.
The challengers continued their neck-to-neck swim in the third round, where Wang skimmed down the lead from 0.90 seconds to 0.52 seconds. With her continuous efforts in the 200m event, Wang staggered her strongest challenger in the final lap, completing
her lap in a time of 31.31 seconds to post 2 minutes and 01.21 seconds on the board. She remained 0.46 seconds ahead of her following swimmer, Sze, who settled on the finishing wall with a second best qualification time of 2 minutes and 01.67 seconds.
The second finisher was in a considerable lead over her subsequent swimmer, Petra Granlund of Sweden, who qualified as the third finest swimmer into the final. Granlund remained 0.72 seconds slower than her former finisher and entered the final round with
a timing of 2 minutes and 02.39 seconds.
Wang was delighted with her qualifying effort in the respective meet and uttered her desire of doing the same in the final round. Furthermore, the arena admired the immaculate efforts of all qualifying swimmers, whereas, these swimmers will compete with
each other in the next round to secure a podium finish.
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