Australian teenager Ariarne Titmus has a simple message for her competitors in the pool at next month’s Commonwealth Games — she is only going to get faster.
The 17-year-old has qualified in three events for the April 4 to April 15 multisport event on the Gold Coast, Australia, after she completed a rare treble at the Australian trials this week.
Titmus became the first Australian woman in 14 years — and just the sixth overall — to win the 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle events at the trials when she took the longest event with a personal best of 8 minutes, 20.08 seconds.
It was the second fastest 800m freestyle swum this year and not far behind Jessica Ashwood’s Australian record of 8 minutes, 18.14 seconds from 2016.
American Katie Ledecky, who will not be at the Games, holds the world record of 8 minutes, 4.79 seconds.
“I was pretty close to the [Australian] record,” Titmus said. “I thought I’d be a bit closer, I was probably aiming for the 8 minute, 18 seconds mark.”
“It was a good swim, but I want to go faster. I obviously have some things to work on leading into the Games, so it’s something I can look forward to,” she said.
“I’m really happy I’m on the team now and I get to do those three swims. I worked hard for this, so I’m pretty happy,” she added.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier