Country’s best make a splash at Wingate

Encouraging signs ahead of the upcoming European swimming Championships.

swimming 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
swimming 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
There were familiar winners in the first full day of this year’s national swimming championships at Wingate Institute on Thursday.
With the full-body swimsuits now banned, there were no new Israeli records set, but the country’s top names still showed some encouraging signs ahead of the upcoming European Championships, which get under way in two weeks’ time.
Amit Ivri, who will be one of Israel’s biggest hopes at the Europeans in Budapest, won the women’s 50-meter butterfly final on Thursday in a time of 26.66 seconds, three-tenths of a second slower than her Israeli record.
Alon Mandel, who will also be in Hungary, took the men’s 50m fly, touching the wall after 24.67s.
Other notable winners on Thursday were: Danny Melnik, who beat Gal Nevo to claim the gold in the 100m breaststroke, Anastasia Korotkov, who got the better of Yuliya Banach in the women’s 100m breaststroke and Nimrod Shapira Bar-Or, who claimed the 400m freestyle title.
The championships will continue daily through Sunday.