SWIMMING: Seven wins for China, two for Sjostrom, $29,000 for Hosszu in Champs Series debut

China's swim star Jiayu Xu

The debut of the FINA Champions Swim Series, a new concept designed as a showcase for the top swimmers in the world – and a $1 million-plus payday – was a demonstration of Chinese dominance in Guangzhou (CHN).

The home crowd had a lot to be happy about, as Chinese swimmers won seven of the 15 events, including a 100-200 m Backstroke double for Jiayu Xu and a 50-100 m Back double for Yuanhui Fu.

Those two had the best marks in terms of the 2019 world list coming into the meet, with both improving slightly on their existing, no. 2-ranked swims in the men’s 200 Back – Xu improved from 1:55.65 to 1:55.24 – and the women’s 50 Back, as Fu swam 27.60 to shave 0.01 off her prior season best of 27.61.

Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom showed that no matter where the competition, she is dominant, winning the 200 m Free by almost two seconds in 1:57.62, and the 100 m Butterfly in 57.16, more than a second ahead of Kelsi Dahlia of the U.S.

The biggest scores were in the bank accounts of the swimmers, as the races had only four swimmers each and paid $10,000-8,000-6,000-5,000, plus some added money for relays. That made the night’s real winners Katinka Hosszu (HUN) and Michael Andrew of the U.S.

They are both plaintiffs in a lawsuit against FINA for restraint of competition, but here they swam five events (Hosszu) and four events (Andrew) and won $29,000 and $19,000, respectively on day one! That wasn’t easy with the entire program of 15 events crammed into a 95-minute timeframe.

With two wins each, Xu, Sjostrom and Fu each won $20,000. And more coming on Sunday.

Other than Andrew, U.S. participation in the meet was limited. Dahlia was second in both Fly events (= $16,000), Molly Hannis was second in the 100 m Breast and Dana Vollmer was fourth in the 200 m Fly and swam a leg on the third-place relay. Summaries:

FINA Champions Series I
Guangzhou (CHN) ~ 27-28 April 2019
(Full results here)

Men

100 m Freestyle: 1. Pieter Timmers (BEL), 48.60; 2. Kliment Kolesnikov (RUS), 48.75; 3. Vladimir Morozov (RUS), 49.10; 4. Chad le Clos (RSA), 49.25.

100 m Backstroke: 1. Jiayu Xu (CHN), 52.98; 2. Ryosuke Irie (JPN), 53.25; 3. Robert Glinta (ROU), 53.70; 4. Kolesnikov (RUS), 53.99.

200 m Back: 1. J. Xu (CHN), 1:55.24; 2. Ryosuke Irie (JPN), 1:56.24; 3. Guangyuan Li (CHN), 1:57.42; 4. Danas Rapsys (LTU), 1:58.77.

50 m Breaststroke: 1. Felipe Lima (BRA), 26.68; 2. Joao Gomes Jr. (BRA), 26.70; 3. Michael Andrew (USA), 27.07; 4. Fabio Scozzoli (ITA), 27.11.

50 m Butterfly: 1. Nicholas Santos (BRA), 23.01; 2. Andrew (USA), 23.27; 3. Andrii Govorov (UKR), 23.28; 4. Benjamin Proud (GBR), 23.34.

200 m Fly: 1. Masato Sakai (JPN), 1:56.44; 2. Le Clos (RSA), 1:58.31; 3. Zhuhao Li (CHN), 1:58.51; 4. Zhou Wang (CHN), 1:59.61.

200 m Medley: 1. Shun Wang (CHN), 1:57.24; 2. Haiyang Qin (CHN), 1:57.89; 3. Yizhe Wang (CHN), 2:02.61; 4. Andrew (USA), 2:04.26.

Women

200 m Free: 1. Sarah Sjostrom (SWE), 1:57.62; 2. Bingjie Li (CHN), 1:59.40; 3. Jianjiahe Wang (CHN), 2:00.93; 4. Katinka Hosszu (HUN), 2:02.56.

400 m Free: 1. Hosszu (HUN), 4:05.16; 2. B. Li (CHN), 4:05.21; 3. Yuhan Zhang (CHN), 4:07.39; 4. J. Wang (CHN), 4:07.57.

50 m Backstroke: 1. Yuanhui Fu (CHN), 27.60; 2. Xiang Liu (CHN), 27.85; 3. Georgia Davies (GBR), 28.08; 4. Emily Seebohm (AUS), 29.40.

100 m Back: 1. Yuanhui Fu (CHN), 59.60; 2. Davies (GBR), 1:00.61; 3. Seebohm (AUS), 1:01.99; 4. Hosszu (HUN), 1:02.99.

100 m Breaststroke: 1. Shiwen Ye (CHN), 1:07.48; 2. Molly Hannis (USA), 1:08.33; 3. Jingyao Yu (CHN), 1:08.51; 4. Imogen Clark (GBR), 1:08.99.

100 m Butterfly: 1. Sjostrom (SWE), 57.16; 2. Kelsi Dahlia (USA), 58.25; 3. Ranomi Kromowidjojo (NED), 58.77; 4. Dana Vollmer (USA), 1:00.78.

200 m Fly: 1. Yufei Zhang (CHN), 2:07.36; 2. Dahlia (USA), 2:09.77; 3. Hosszu (HUN), 2:11.95; 4. Yuhan Zhang (CHN), 2:12.28.

Mixed

4×100 m Free: 1. Team 3 (He/CHN, Proud/GBR, Kromowidjojo/NED, Davies/GBR), 3:28.84; 2. Team 2 (Minakov, le Clos, Hosszu, Li), 3:30.55; 3. Team 1 (Morozov, Timmers, Wang, Vollmer), 3:31.40; 4. Team 4 (Kamminga, Andrew, Clark, C. Campbell), 3:31.55.