Bell rings third World Youth Swimming title
Waitakere swimmer Daniel Bell continued his remarkable run with a third gold medal at the FINA World Youth Championships in Mexico today.
Bell took out the final of the 50m butterfly in a New Zealand open record at Monterrey today, after winning the 100m backstroke and 100m butterfly earlier in the championships.
This is the fourth gold medal won by New Zealand after teammate Orinoco Faamausili-Banse won the 50m freestyle yesterday. He fell ill today and withdrew from the 100m freestyle.
It proved another barn-storming day for Bell who attempted to attack two major events today. He was second fastest in the heats of the 100m freestyle in a personal best 50.62 in the morning.
“We gave him the chance to withdraw at night to concentrate on the 50m butterfly finals but he was having nothing of it,” coach Donna Bouzaid said.
“He felt he could win them both which is typical of his fantastic attitude.”
The West Auckland Aquatics club swimmer was fractionally slower in the evening semifinal in 50.99s which meant he missed out on a place in tomorrow’s final by 2/10ths of a second.
Twenty minutes later he was back in the pool to bag his third gold medal in the 50m butterfly, with his winning time of 23.61 establishing a new Championship Record. It also set a new National Open Record previously held by Beijing Olympian Corney Swanepoel.
Wellington’s John Gatfield also performed strongly today with personal best performances in the 50m breaststroke and the 400m individual medley.
The championships continue until tomorrow.
New Zealand results from the fifth day of the FINA World Youth Swimming Championships in Mexico:
Final:
50m butterfly: Daniel Bell (NZL) 23.61, 1 (Championship record, NZ Open record); Ivan Lendjer (SRB) 23.97, 2; Pavel Sankovich (BLR) 24.49, 3.
Semifinal:
100m freestyle: Bell 50.99, 10th.
Heats:
100m freestyle: Bell 50.62, 2.
50m breaststroke: John Gatfield 31.37, 34.
400m individual medley: Gatfield 4:38.37, 14; Kane Radford 4:46.17, 22.
