Swimming: Silver for Jemma Lowe as records tumble

Dec 16 2010 The Journal

TEESSIDER Jemma Lowe won a silver medal in the 200metre butterfly at the World Short Course Championships in Dubai yesterday.

The 20-year-old from Stockton finished 0.35 seconds behind winner Mireia Belmonte Garcia of Spain, who claimed gold in a championship record two minutes 3.59secs.

Petra Granlund of Sweden won the bronze with world record holder Zige Liu of China back in fifth.

Belmonte Garcia took her second gold with victory in the 400m individual medley as Britain’s Hannah Miley came home fourth.

The Spaniard set her second championship record of the day to touch in 4mins 24.21seconds, with Miley 5.56secs further back.

Chinese duo Shiwen Ye and Xuanxu Li claimed silver and bronze respectively.

China set the first world record of 2010 by winning the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay.

The quartet of Qian Chen, Yi Tang, Jing Liu and Qianwei Zhu clocked 7mins 35.94secs, surpassing the previous mark of 7mins 38.90secs, set by Holland in 2008.

Indeed, the top four teams were all inside the old mark, Australia finishing second in 7:37.57, France third in 7:38.33 and the United States fourth in 7:38.42.

It is the first world record to fall since high-tech swimsuits were outlawed.

American Ryan Lochte claimed victory in the 200m freestyle but saw his bid for eight gold medals ended as USA could only finish fourth in the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay.

The 26-year-old Lochte won the 200m freestyle in a championship record of 1:41.08, 0.62secs ahead of Russia’s Danila Izotov.