Slow start for Young Swimmers at FINA Junior World Championships

Jamaica’s junior swimmers got off to a rough start in the pool as the FINA Junior World Championships began at the DUNA Arena in Budapest, Hungary, on Tuesday.

Zaneta Alvaranga and Sabrina Lyn started their World Junior Championships in the women’s 50m breaststroke finishing sixth and seventh in heat four, with times of 34.42 seconds and 35.24, respectively. Despite Moldova’s Anastasia Basisto winning the race in a time of 32.78, it was not fast enough make it to the semi-finals as the top 15 qualifiers had times of 32.27 or better.

Out of finals

Nicholas Vale finished in seventh place in his heat of the men’s 400m freestyle event in a time of 4:16.02 seconds, but was far outside the eight qualifiers for the final, with times of 3:51.75 seconds or better. Amazingly, the junior championship record was broken by the top qualifier, Gabor Zombori of Hungary, in a blistering time of 3:46.97 seconds.

Zombori outdid himself in the final later that evening claiming the 400m freestyle junior championship, lowering the record he set earlier to an incredible 3:46.06 seconds. Thomas Neill of Australia finished second in 3:46.27 seconds, and Aleksandr Egorov of Russia took bronze in 3:47.36 seconds.

Cameron Brown placed seventh in the men’s 100m breaststroke in a time of 1:08.62 seconds, missing out on the semi-finals, as the top 15 had times of 1:02.65 seconds or better. Izaak Bastian of The Bahamas was the lone representative from the Caribbean who qualified for the semi-finals in a time of 1:02.55 seconds, but was unable to advance to the final, finishing sixth.

Didn’t qualify

Nathaniel Thomas and Kyle Sinclair finished fifth and sixth in heat three of the men’s 100m backstroke with times of 1.01.43 seconds and 1.02.00 seconds respectively, outside of the automatic qualifying group. Thomas Ceccon of Italy, the top qualifier in the heats, set a new championship record with a time of 54.07. He will headline today’s final along with Nikolay Zuev of Russia, whose semi-final winning time of 54.08 was one millisecond off the new championship record.

Thomas, Vale, Brown and Sinclair combined for a significant milestone fielding the first Jamaican relay team to compete in a global event of any kind. In the men’s 4x100m relay, the team finished seventh in their heat with a time of 3:39.20 in a fast field. The United States, who qualified with a time of 3:18.27 seconds, won the final in a World Junior record-breaking time of 3.15.80 seconds. Russia finished second in 3.16.26 seconds and Italy claimed bronze in 3.16.29 seconds.