South African Roland Schoeman again denied American Ian Crocker to successfully defend his 50m butterfly world title in Melbourne on Monday.
The Arizona-based Schoeman held off the 100m butterfly world-record holder’s desperate finish to win the one-lap scamper by 0,29secs in 23,18 seconds.
Schoeman proved superior to Crocker at the last Montreal world championships in 2005 and gave South Africa their first swimming medal of the meet.
It was three times unlucky for Crocker, who was also beaten into the silver medal by Australian Matt Welsh in Barcelona in 2003.
”That was one breath, I’m a little out of breath now but there were no tactics,” Schoeman said.
Schoeman and Crocker are the only swimmers to have qualified for all three previous 50m butterfly finals at the world championships in Fukuoka, Barcelona and Montreal.
Denmark’s Jakob Schiott Andkjaer took the bronze medal in 23.56secs.
Asked whether the 50m butterfly should be on the Olympic swimming programme, Schoeman said: ”That would be great. Now this is for the fans, we need to get rid of the semifinals and just have finals.”
Crocker quipped after the race: ”I’m just glad he’s not so good at the longer stuff.
”In the 50 you can’t screw up at all and I had a couple of mess-ups there. My last couple of strokes were terrible — I had a big glide to the wall,” he said.
”I made some bad decisions, but it’s so easy to do, especially when you’re trying not to breathe because it wastes time.
”I definitely don’t train for this race. It’s just a dress rehearsal for my 100m butterfly. The 100 lets me stretch out, which I really appreciate.” — AFP
