Ivry clocked a time of 1:08.52m, improving Yuliya Banach’s previous mark by 41 hundredths.
By ALLON SINAIAmit Ivry 370(photo credit: Reuters)
After a disappointing performance in her main event on Sunday, the 100-meter butterfly, Amit Ivry bounced back on Monday with a new Israeli record in the 100m breaststroke at the world swimming championships in Barcelona on Monday.Ivry clocked a time of 1:08.52m, improving Yuliya Banach’s previous mark by 41 hundredths. Nevertheless, Ivry failed to reach the semifinals, finishing in 18th place, just 16 hundredths from the top 16.Yakov Toumarkin came within 13 hundredths of a place in the men’s 100m backstroke semis, clocking a time of 54.85s to finish in 19th place overall.On Thursday, Toumarkin will compete in the 200m back, in which he reached the final at the London Olympics last year.Also Monday, Nimrod Shapira Bar-Or ended the 200m freestyle in 33rd place (1:49.78).In other action on Monday, Lithuania’s teenage Olympic champion Ruta Meilutyte set a world record of one minute 04.35 seconds in the semifinals of the women’s 100-meter breaststroke, the same disciple Ivry set her Israeli record in.The 16-year-old, who won gold at the London Olympics last year and is chasing the Baltic nation’s first world championship gold, shaved a tenth of a second off the previous mark of 1:04.45 set by American Jessica Hardy in 2009.Meanwhile, Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu won the women’s 200-meter individual medley as Olympic champion Ye Shiwen of China surprisingly finished outside the medals in fourth.Cesar Cielo of Brazil won a second consecutive men’s 50- meter butterfly while Australia’s Christian Sprenger came from behind to beat Olympic champion and worldrecord holder Cameron Van Der Burgh of South Africa and take gold in the men’s 100- meter breaststroke.
