Swimming: Nevo places fifth in 200 IM at European Championships

Swimming Nevo places fi

By ALLON SINAI
Gal Nevo added another significant achievement to his ever-growing resume on Thursday, finishing fifth in the 200-meter Individual Medley final on the first day of the European Short Course Swimming Championships in Istanbul, Turkey. The 22-year-old clocked a time of 1:54.17 minutes, and was especially impressive in the second half of the race, moving up from 10th to fifth position. However, his time and any other Israeli records set in the championships in Turkey will not be recognized by the Israeli Swimming Association as the swimmers are all using the performance-enhancing, non-textile swimsuits which will be banned by world swimming's governing body FINA from January 1, 2010. Nevo improved his Israeli record by more than four seconds earlier in the day, setting a time of 1:55.22m in the morning heats. The final was won by Austria's Markus Rogan in a new European record of 1:51.72m. The Kibbutz Hamadia native equaled the best ever finish by an Israeli at the swimming World Championships in August, finishing the 400-meter individual medley in sixth position. He was also Israel's best swimmer at last year's Beijing Olympics, finishing the 200m and 400m IM in 13th and 11th place, respectively. Also Thursday, Yakov Zurablov set a new personal best of 1:55.73m to finish in 19th position in the 200m backstroke, with fellow Israeli Jonathan Kopelev finishing in 28th place (1:58.10m). Miki Malul ended the 100m breaststroke in 39th position (59.78s), with Tom Be'eri finishing in 63rd (1:02.53m). Yuliya Banach came 38th (31.71s) in the 50m breaststroke, while Anastasia Korotkov finished in 47th place (32.18s). Anna Volchkov was 42nd (1:02.31m) in the 100 backstroke, with Amit Ivri ending the 200 I.M. in 22nd position (2:14.41m). Three world records were set on Thursday. Evelyn Verrastzo of Hungary beat her own best time in the women's 200-meter individual medley by finishing in 2 minutes, 4.64 seconds. That bettered her previous record of 2:06:01, which was set last month in Moscow. Two different Russian teams broke the men's 4x50-meter medley relay record. The lineup of Stanislav Donets, Stanislav Lakhtyukhov, Evgeny Korotyshkin and Evgeny Lagunov posted a time of 1:32.08 in the heats, but that was trumped hours later in the final when Donets and Korotyshkin combined with Sergey Geybel and Sergey Fesikov to win in 1:31.80. The previous world record of 1:32.91 was set by Italy in Croatia last year.