KATSOULIS IN MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH SWIM IN STOCKHOLM
STOCKHOLM, November 12: Melbourne university student Sarah Katsoulis has produced the best swim of her career to win one of three gold medals by Australians on day one of the FINA/ARENA Swimming World Cup in Stockholm last night.
The 24-year-old exercise science student clocked the fourth fastest time in world short course swimming history to chalk up her third 100m breaststroke World Cup victory of the tour - adding Stockholm to her wins in Sydney and Singapore.
Katsoulis stopped the clock at 1:04.84 - a time only ever bettered by three swimmers, her Nunawading team mate and world record holder and Olympic champion, Leisel Jones (1:03.72), American Jessica Hardy (1:04.22) and Russia's Valentina Artemyeva (1:04.71).
It is a major break through for the persevering Katsoulis, who has two silver and one bronze medal to her name from two FINA World Short Course Championships in Indianapolis and Manchester.
Katsoulis' performance was the highest pointscoring swim in the women's events on day one with her 1004 points well clear of Sweden's Petra Granlund (981 points for her 1:54.77 in the 200m freestyle) and Denmark's Lotte Friis (979 pts for her 800m freestyle time of 8:14.99).
Adding to their on-going World Cup successes were women's Series leader Marieke Guehrer, who downed Swedish pair Therese Alshammar and Josefin Lillhage to notch her 11th FINA/ARENA Swimming World Cup victory from the six meets so far - giving her $US16,500 in prizemoney from wins alone.
Guehrer clocked a time of 24.25 to Alshammar's 24.32 and Lillhage's 24.47 with Guehrer and Alshammar set to continue their dueling in the 50m butterfly tomorrow.
Australia's third gold medal went to brilliant young butterflyer Matt Jaukovic who took his number of victories to six since his world record breaking swim in Sydney, with a time of 22.85 in the 50 metres butterfly.
But it wasn't enough to get Jaukovic into the provisional top three in the $US380,000 points race to be decided in the final "double points round" in Berlin this weekend.
You had to be in world record form to snatch the podium points with South Africa's amazing young breaststroker Cameron van der Burgh becoming the first swimmer in history to crack 26 seconds for 50m breaststroke short course - clocking a sizzling 25.94 for 1073 points.
A second world record went to American Peter Marshall who lowered Ryan Lochte's 2006 world mark with a time of 49.94 - taking 0.05 off the US Olympic champion's 100m backstroke world mark.
It was a 1-2 finish for the Americans with last season's World Cup star Randall Bal taking silver in 50.30 ahead of Australian pair Robert Hurley, who had set a new World Cup record of 50.28 in Singapore.
Other Australian medallists on day one were Sophie Edington (silver in the 200m backstroke in 2:06.18 and bronze in the 50m backstroke in 27.58); Chris Wright (silver in the 200m butterfly in 1:53.71) and Christian Sprenger (bronze in the 50m breaststroke in 26.86).
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