W50Back: Golden End To Zueva's Silver Run
Jul 28, 2011 - Craig Lord
Day 5 finals, Oriental Sports Center, Shanghai
Women's 50m backstroke
Anastasia Zueva got herself and Russia on the gold-medal board with a 27.79sec victory that ended a run of silver linings (100m and 200m in Rome, 100m in Shanghai). The silver this time went to another, Aya Terakawa (JPN), in 27.93, with bronze to Melissa Franklin (USA), in 28.01.
"I did not expect to get the gold medal in the 50, because it is not an Olympic event so I did not concentrate on it," Zueva said. "But my coach had great belief that I could win. I felt really tired in the last (few) metres, but I really wanted to win."
The result:
History in the making:
Records:
World-class stats
From the archive:
Gao Chang, of China, is hoping that a home world championship will make it fourth time lucky. Silver medallist in 2005 and 2007 behind Giaan Rooney (AUS) and Leila Vaziri (USA) respectively, Gao claimed bronze in Rome 2009. The main obstacle to her ambition may be team-mate and reigning champion Zhao Jing: between them they own the best 16 times ever set by Chinese swimmers, eight each.
In Melbourne 2007, the crown went to Leila Vaziri (USA) in 28.18, while 28.67 concluded the entertainment in the final. Skip forward to Rome 2009 and the comparable range was a world record of 27.06 for Zhao Jing (CHN) to an 8th-place 27.88, the 2007 winning time equivalent to 14th in the semi-finals in 2009.