BALFOUR STRIKES GOLD WITH BRITISH RECORD
Scotland's Kirsty Balfour broke the British Record for the
third time in a little over two months as she won gold in
the Women's 200m Breaststroke at the Stockholm leg of the
FINA World Cup.
The City of Edinburgh swimmer broke the record twice in December
- in France and South Africa - and turned in another quality
performance tonight to edge a close finish in 2:22.73 - her
previous standard had stood at 2:23.25.
Balfour beat U.S. swimmer Tara Kirk into second place in
2:22.85 and China's Luo Nan was third in 2:22.88.
"That was a nice surprise for me, not only to win but
to win in that time," explained Balfour.
"It was great to turn around at the end of the race
to see that I'd won. I was in lane one so I had to do it on
my own.
"I couldn't see the other girls and I wasn't sure how
fast I was going so to touch in that time meant a lot to me.
"I've really enjoyed the past year, I've been working
with a new coach in Fred Vergnoux and I love to race the 200m
in a 25m pool."
Britain won three further medals on day two to take the total
for the Stockholm meet to 10.
Mel Marshall (Loughborough University) weighed in with a
further two medals to add to her gold from day one in the
Women's 200m Freestyle. She took silver in the Women's 100m
Freestyle and a bronze in the 400m distance.
Marshall set a new personal best time to take second place
over 100m. She finished in 53.82 behind Marleen Veldhuis of
the Netherlands in 53.28 and the bronze went to Therese Alshammar
of Sweden in 54.02.
A close finish to the 400m Freestyle saw Rachel Komisarz
of the U.S. take gold in 4:04.23 with silver going to Alena
Popchanka of France in 4:04.28 and Marshall grabbed bronze
in 4:04.78.
Liam Tancock finished the medal haul for Britain with a bronze
in the Men's 50m Backstroke. Gold went to Peter Marshall of
the U.S. in 23.66, American team mate Bal Randall was second
in 24.08 and Tancock took bronze in 24.52.
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