But Maurer was bitter about the aggressive tactics of some swimmers.
"Everyone was just beating each other up," Maurer said. "I have never experienced such a race before. It was horrible."
A power failure delayed the morning session for about 20 minutes, the second in two days at the complex. Preliminaries in the women's 10m diving competition were scheduled for yesterday evening, assuming the lights stayed on.
It was another good day for the Russians.
In addition to Ilchenko's second gold, the country kept up its dominance of synchronized swimming, scoring 99.000 points to qualify first for the team free preliminaries final on Saturday.
The Russians already have two synchronized golds in two events at Melbourne -- Natalia Ischenko in the new solo technical event and in the team free combination.
Russia was heavily favored to win another gold last night in the technical duet after world and Olympic champions Anastasia Davydova and Anastasia Ermakova led the preliminaries.
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