Swimming

The Men's 400m saw Karnataka's Aneesh S Gowda claim the top spot with a time of 3:56.59, coming in second by a fair distance was fellow state-mate Dharshan S, clocking 4:01.39.

China took gold in the artistic swimming team event Wednesday night at the Paris Olympics, with the United States getting silver and Spain taking bronze. China dominated in the absence of Russia, which had won every gold medal in artistic beginning with the 2000 Sydney Games. China finished with 996.1389 points, ahead of the Americans' 914.3421 and Spain's 900.7319. It was the first U.S. medal in the sport since 2004. It was a big medal for China, and also a step forward for the sport, which changed its name from synchronized swimming several years ago to update its image. Some swimmers still call it synchro. There is attention to the sport that has never happened before, said Adam Andrasko, who heads USA Artistic Swimming. This is an absolutely different sport. The smiles, the makeup and hair gelatin remain, but this is no longer the water ballet beneath flowery rubber caps that your grandparents watched. Wednesday's acrobatic routines, after technical and free routines on Monda

As the Paris Olympics 2024 enters its sixth day, only one world record has been set in the swimming events

After days of delays and uncertainty over water quality in the Seine River, the women's and men's Olympic triathlon races will go forward Wednesday with a swim in the famed Paris waterway. The decision to go ahead with the Seine swim for the triathlon competitions is a big win for the city, Olympics organizers and the athletes. Officials undertook an ambitious plan, including 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in infrastructure improvements, to clean up the long-polluted Seine and have been steadfast in their insistence that the swimming portion of the triathlon and the marathon swimming events next week could safely be held in the river. The organizers said early Wednesday the latest tests of the water showed compliance with quality standards. Elevated levels of bacteria in the river pushed the men's race originally planned for Tuesday to Wednesday, when the women's competition had been scheduled. Test events meant to allow the athletes to familiarize themselves with the course had .

Canadian phenom Summer McIntosh claimed the first gold medal of her just-burgeoning career Monday night with a dominating victory in the 400-meter individual medley at the Paris Olympics. The 17-year-old McIntosh collected her first medal of any color on the opening night of swimming, taking a silver in the 400 freestyle behind Ariarne Titmus and ahead of Katie Ledecky. Now, McIntosh has the most prized color of all. I try to take every event very individually and just do my work, but starting off for me getting on the podium is definitely a great way to start, McIntosh said. You try to continue to get better and better. She pushed the pace hard through the first half of the grueling race the butterfly and backstroke legs to leave everyone in her wake except American Katie Grimes. McIntosh was under her own world-record pace, but couldn't keep it going. She touched in 4 minutes, 27.71 seconds, more than three seconds off the mark of 4:24.38 she set at the Canadian trials in .

Zhang Yufei hopes her international rivals will believe she is competing clean after the Chinese swimming star estimates she took between 20 and 30 drug tests monthly in the lead-up to the Paris Olympics. I don't think there's a single athlete, Chinese or foreign, who would test positive for doping. They would not want to destroy all the hard work they've put in over the years on doping, Zhang told reporters in the mixed zone Saturday when she was the top qualifier for the 100-meter butterfly final. She won her preliminary race in 56.50 seconds during the first day of the swimming competition at Paris La Defense Arena. She said afterwards she is anxious about what her friends and competitors in the swimming world are thinking about Zhang and others from the Chinese team. Zhang said she and her teammates have tested three to four days a week in the past couple of months leading up to the Paris Games and in the wake of a doping scandal involving 23 Chinese swimmers including Zhang .

With no men picked to compete in artistic swimming at the Paris Olympics, where they are eligible for the first time, a former world champion is ending his career this week. At the Italian national championships, four-time worlds gold medalist Giorgio Minisini said he is competing for the last time at age 28. Obsession is a young man's game, Minisini, who was left off the Italian Olympic team in April, wrote on his Instagram account Tuesday. Minisini and Bill May of the United States were the two most likely Olympic pioneers aiming to be picked for Paris as the first men to compete in artistic swimming. The sport debuted at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics as synchronized swimming. However, the 96 athletes picked by 18 different nations for the Olympics were all women. World Aquatics is very disappointed that no male artistic swimmers have been selected for Paris 2024, the governing body said. This should have been a landmark moment for the sport. The rules change by World Aquatics

A roadmap to follow for the marathon swimming competition during the Paris Olympics: Athletes to Watch: Florian Wellbrock, Germany: He is the defending Olympic champion who qualified for Paris with a wire-to-wire victory in the marathon swimming event at the 2023 world championships. At Tokyo in 2021, Wellbrock narrowly missed out on his goal of winning golds in the open water and in the pool when he had to settle for bronze in the 1,500 meters. He's aiming for a double in Paris, where the open water events will be staged within view of the Eiffel Tower. Kristof Rasovszky, Hungary: He won the men's open water title at the world championships in Doha, Qatar, in February after finishing with the silver medal behind Wellbrock at the Tokyo Olympics and at the 2023 worlds in Fukuoka, Japan. Sharon van Rouwendaal, Netherlands: The 30-year-old Dutch swimmer won Olympic gold at Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and was the silver medalist in the open water event in Tokyo. She surged to the finish at

Ryan Murphy longs to reclaim the top spot on the medal podium at the Paris Olympics. America's backstroke star was relegated to silver and bronze in his individual races at Tokyo a performance that still irks him just a bit. There's definitely no shortage of motivation from my end, said Murphy, who will be competing in the men's 100 and 200-meter back for the third Olympics in row. I feel like I've always got a fire under my butt." The 29-year-old Floridian, who trains at Cal-Berkeley, has been a worthy successor to the long run of backstroke success in the U.S. Picking up the baton from giants such as John Nabor, Rick Carey, Lenny Krayzelburg, Aaron Peirsol and Matt Grevers, Murphy has left his own impressive mark. At the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016, he swept the men's backstroke events and added a third gold as part of the 4x100 medley relay. He followed up at the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Games with a runner-up finish in the 200 and a third-place showing in the 100, to go al

Most of the big stars from the last Olympics will be back at the pool in Paris. Caeleb Dressel. Katie Ledecky. Ariarne Titmus. Emma McKeon. But the local favorite might just shine brightest of them all. France's Lon Marchand has drawn comparisons to the great Michael Phelps, a link that was only strengthened by Phelps' longtime coach, Bob Bowman, overseeing the 22-year-old's rise to prominence. At last summer's world championships in Fukuoka, Marchand broke Phelps' 15-year-old world record in the 400-meter individual medley, to go along with victories in the 200 IM and 200 butterfly two more of Phelps' signature events. Leon has several things that make him a great, Bowman said. He has speed and he has endurance. So he kind of has the whole package that you want, and so far he's done well under pressure, which is the other piece of that equation. He has it all really. Marchand will also have the home-pool advantage in Paris, where the swimming will be contested in a temporary ..

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India will hope for a rich medal haul from the athletics contingent who will begin their campaign on Friday, Day 6 of the Asian Games 2023. Saketh Myeneni and Ramkumar Ramanathan will play for gold

The Indian men's 4x100m and women's 4x200m freestyle relay teams sailed into the finals with new national records at the Asian Games here on Thursday. Srihari Nataraj, Tanish George Mathew and Vishal Grewal clocked 3:21.22s to finish fifth in the heats to qualify for the final of the 4x100m freestyle relay event. They rewrote the previous 'Best Indian Time' of 3:23.72s set by Nataraj, Sajan Prakash, Virdhwal Khade and Anil Kumar Shylaja in 2019. The quartet of Dhinidhi Desinghu, Shivangi Sarma, Vritti Agarwal and Hashika Ramachandra (8:39.64s) followed suit by notching up the 'Best Indian Time' in women's 4x200m freestyle relay. The Indians finished eighth in the 10-team heat to move to the final. The four women swimmers bettered the 8:40.89s mark set by by Hashika, Dhinidhi, Vihitha Nayana and Shirin at the nationals earlier this year. In swimming, timing is considered a national meet record when it has been achieved at the National Aquatic Championships. Hence, the timings clo

Indian swimmers continued to disappoint in the pool with none of them managing to qualify for the finals of their respective events at the Asian Games here on Wednesday. Olympian Maana Patel finished fifth in heat 3 and 13th overall with a timing of 1:03.55s but failed to qualify for the final of women's 100m backstroke. It turned out to be a disappointing outing for India's Nina Venkatesh as well as she finished fourth in her heat and 14th overall with a timing of 1:03.89s to crash out of the women's 100m butterfly. The top eight swimmers progressed to the final. Srihari Nataraj then clocked 1:49.05s to finish 10th in men's 200m freestyle heats. He has been kept as a second reserve for the final. Competing in the women's 100m breaststroke, India's Lineysha also failed to progress to the medal round, touching the pad in the sixth position with a timing of 1:15.60s in her heat.

Nataraj clocked 1:49.05 in the men's 200m freestyle heats and finished in 10th place overall, for which he failed to make his place in the final event and stayed as a reserve

The Indian men's 4x100m medley relay team swam a sensational heat, obliterating the national record to enter the final of the Asian Games here on Tuesday. The quartet of Srihari Nataraj, Likhith Selvaraj, Sajan Prakash and Tanish George Mathew clocked 3:40.84 to finish behind Japan in heat 1. They bettered the national record of 3:44.94 set by Nataraj, Sandeep Sejwal, Prakash, Aaron D'Souza in the last edition of the Games in Jakarta. They finished fourth overall to advance to the final, which will be held later in the day. The two other Indian swimmers competing in the day -- Palak Joshi and Shivangi Sarma -- failed to progress to the finals of their respective events. While Shivangi finished 17th in the women's 100m freestyle event, Palak was (2:25.81) ranked 14 among 19 swimmers in the women's 200m backstroke (58.31).

In encouraging developments for the Indian contingent at the ongoing Asian Games in Hangzhou, one swimmer each in men's 50 backstroke and 100m breaststroke and men's 4 200 m relay team made it final

Asian Games 2023 Day 1 Highlights: The Indian team won five medals in rowing and shooting while it secured a medal by qualifying for final in women's cricket

Nataraj on the back of his fine performance reached the men's 100m backstroke final earlier in the day. He recorded his season-best time of 54.71