Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) – Olympic swim stars Summer McIntosh and Leon Marchand delivered another pair of dominant wins on Friday as they powered to 400m individual medley victories on the third day of the Pro Swim Series in Austin, Texas. Canada’s McIntosh, winner of three gold medals at the Paris Olympics and four titles at last year’s World Championships in Singapore, crushed the field in the women’s 400m medley, clocking 4:28.13 to beat American Emma Weyant, a two-time Olympic medalist herself, by 11.98 seconds. The 19-year-old Canadian, who holds the world record of 4:23.65, cracked the 4:30 barrier in the event for the 11th time.
Marchand, who followed up his electrifying four-gold performance at the Paris Games with a medley double at the World Championships, won the men’s 400 IM in 4:13.21, leading all the way to beat American Bobby Finke by 5.14 seconds. Marchand and McIntosh, now both training in Austin with former Michael Phelps mentor Bob Bowman, had claimed 200m medley victories on Thursday.
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Ireland’s Daniel Wiffen won the men’s 800m freestyle in 7:50.37, with Finke second in 7:51.50 in a battle of Olympic champions. Wiffen, who won 800m free gold at the Paris Games, seized control early and held off Finke, who won the event at the Tokyo Games in 2021. “The plan was to go out hard at the start and see if I could hold on,” said Wiffen, who is now training in California. “I was able to hold on but I was dying at the end.”
Ryan Erisman was third in 7:51.87 and returned barely more than half an hour later to win the 200m free in 1:46.66, with his strong closing lap sealing a victory over world championships silver medalist Luke Hobson (1:47.31). American Van Mathias won the men’s 50m breaststroke in a quick 26.89 seconds, with Kyrgyzstan’s Denis Petrashov second in 27.12. American Skylar Smith won the women’s 50m breaststroke in 30.43, 33-hundredths of a second in front of reigning 100m breaststroke world champion Anna Elendt.
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