2024 Mare Nostrum – Monaco: Summary of the heats of day 2

MARE NOSTRUM TOUR 2024 – MONACO

On the second day of the 2024 Mare Nostrum – Monaco competition, the final stop of the Tour, today's session will kick off with fast laps in the Sprint Skins.

Before that, however, after the record-breaking day on the first day, the swimmers competed in a packed program of preliminary heats.

The men's 200m freestyle is teeming with talent, but in this morning's heats a trio of Koreans snatched the top three spots.

Jaehoon Yang landed on lane 4 with an AM time of 1:47.51, followed by yesterday's 100 m freestyle winner and reigning World Championship gold medalist in the 200 m freestyle Hwang Sunwoo.

Hwang achieved a time of 1:48.42, while teammate Hojoon Lee was immediately behind with 1:48.48.

Estonia's Kregor Zirk took 4th place in 1:48.73 and won the gold medal in the 200 m butterfly. Kristof Milak from Hungary is also taking part. The 24-year-old Milak secured 5th place with a time of 1:49.38.

Milak previously competed in the 100m butterfly, where he secured pole position with a time of 52.11. At the second stop in Barcelona, ​​Milak achieved a Mare Nostrum record of 50.95, equaling the standard he set in 2021.

Reigning Asian Games Champion Katsuhiro Matsumoto secured 2nd place in 52.19 and the Swiss national record Noé Ponti bound Singaporean Quah Zheng Wen for 3rfd in 52.31.

Japanese teammates Genki Terakado (52,55) and Honda factories (52.77) also reached the final, while the South African Chad LeClos took 12th place with 53.83.

There are also world-class talents in the women’s 100-metre freestyle, including Marie Wattel of France and Siobhan Haughey from Hong Kong.

This duo took the top two places, with Wattel taking the win in 54.71 seconds and Haughey just 0.06 seconds behind in 54.77 seconds. Nagisa Ikemoto (54.91) and Great Britain Freya Anderson (55.24) will also be chasing medals in tonight’s main event.

In Barcelona, ​​Haughey won the gold medal with 52.55 points, very close to her season's best and national record of 52.05 points, which she set in Berlin last October.

The women’s 100-meter backstroke is a tightly packed field after this morning’s heats, led by the Japanese Rio Shirai.

Shirai secured first place with 1:01.00, closely followed by the Canadian Olympic qualifier Ingrid Wilm. Wilm secured 2nd place in 1:01.08 with the Israeli Anastasia Gorbenko and completed the top 3 with 1:02.02.

Gorbenko returned to the pool at the end of the session to compete in the 200m individual medley, where she came out on top with a time of 2:15.29.

The 20-year-old Gorbenko has shown an absolute top performance in this tour and has so far set new national records in the 200 m backstroke, 200 m individual medley and 400 m individual medley.

Olympic silver medalist Arno Kamminga will be the man to beat in the 100m breaststroke final tonight. The Dutchman ran a time of 59.77, making him the only sub-minute runner of the morning.

Countryman Caspar Corbeau finished second with a time of 1:00.45, while Japan’s gold medalist from Barcelona, Yu-Hang-urumalurks in fourth place in 1:01.26.

Italy’s diverse Thomas Ceccon tried on this 1breast. The world record holder in the 100m backstroke achieved a time of 1:02.89 and took 11th place.

Other top seeds

• Japan's Tomoyuki Matsushita beat the men's 400m individual medley field by nearly 9 seconds this morning, clocking a time of 4:23.49 to set the stage for success in today's final.
• Danish national record holder Helena Rosendahl-Bach ran the women's 200-meter butterfly in 2:10.51 minutes in the morning. She achieved her fastest time to date in April at the Swim Open Stockholm with 2:06.43 minutes.
• Only one swimmer broke the 2:00 mark in the 200-meter backstroke, with Hidekazu Takehara from Japan with 1:59.31.
• Lithuanian Kotryna Teterevkova took first place in the women's 200 breaststroke with a time of 2:29.38. Her fastest time of the season remains 2:24.56, which earned her silver at the Pro Swim in San Antonio in April.