Ingram wins again in Singapore World Cup Swim
Melissa Ingram should move to fourth place overall after another strong performance at the FINA World Cup in Singapore today.
Ingram, from the Swimming NZ High Performance squad at Millennium Institute, took out the women’s 400m freestyle at the short course World Cup to follow on from a win in the 200m backstroke and second placing in the 200m freestyle yesterday.
She was one of five New Zealand medalists today in Singapore including Wellington’s Matt Woodrow, Taranaki’s Charlotte Webby, Southland’s Natalie Wiegersma and Rotorua’s Kane Radford.
Woodrow finished an outstanding second to Olympic gold medalist Oussama Mellouli (Tunisia) in the 1500m freestyle with Radford third. Webby won bronze in the 200m butterfly and Wiegersma continued her medal winning efforts with a bronze in the 400m individual medley.
Ingram faced a more aggressive start from the field that included Beijing gold medalist Bronte Barratt and in-form South African Melissa Corfe. The kiwi was third at the 100m mark but had moved to the front at the midway mark before clearing out with two 30 second laps to win in 4:04.55 from Barrett and Corfe.
It was slightly slower than her New Zealand record set in Sydney but impressive in its execution, earning her 944 FINA points. This is expected to elevate her to fourth place in the overall in the World Cup standings, with NZ$170,000 up for grabs for all swimmers at each World Cup short course meet and a further $600,000 to be distributed among the top three male and female swimmers at the end of the seven-meet series.
Ingram will head to Europe later this week where she will prepare for the three remaining rounds of the World Cup in Moscow, Stockholm and Berlin.
Woodrow turned in another stunning performance to finish second in the 1500m freestyle after taking the fight to the Olympic champion Mellouli.
The SwimZone club swimmer led by two seconds at the 400m mark, one second at the 800 and was still in front at 1250m. Mellouli fought to the front to take the win from Woodrow who clocked a strong 15:07.81 for second with Radford a distance back in third place in 15:23.99 and Taranaki’s Dylan Dunlop-Barrett fourth.
Natalie Wiegersma, 20, improved one place from Sydney to get on to the podium in the 400m individual medley in 4:43.44 won by South Africa’s Katheryn Meaklim.
Webby (Bell Block) held on strongly for third in the 200m butterfly in 2:13.30, won by Australia’s Amy Smith.
Ingram was also fourth in the 100m backstroke final and fellow Olympian Mark Herring (West Auckland) fourth in the 100m freestyle.
Results, FINA World Cup, Singapore, NZ performances day 2 finals:
Female:
400m freestyle: Melissa Ingram (SNZ HP) 4:04.55, 1; Bronte Barrett (AUS) 4:07.68, 2; Melissa Corfe (South Africa) 4:10.43, 3. Also Joyce Wiegersma (Southland) 4:18.27, 5; Charlotte Webby (Bell Block) 4:20.40, 6; Natasha Simpson (West Auckland) 7.
400m individual medley: Katheryn Meaklin (RSA) 4:32.21, 1; Svetlana Karpeeva (RUS) 4:40.85, 2; Natalie Wiegersma (Southland) 4:43.44, 3.
100m backstroke: Ingram 59.73, 4.
200m butterfly: Amy Smith (AUS) 2:07.39, 1; Meaklim 2:09.69, 2; Webby 2:13.30, 3.
200m breaststroke: Natalie Wiegersma 2:35.12, 5.
Male:
1500m freestyle: Oussama Mellouli (TUN) 15:06.05, 1; Matt Woodrow (SwimZone, Wellington) 15:07.81, 2; Kane Radford (Rotorua) 15:23.99, 3; Dylan Dunlop-Barrett (Bell Block) 15:24.12, 4.
200m freestyle: Brett Newall (West Auckland) 1:49.53, 6; Steven Kent (SwimZone) 1:49.66, 7.
100m butterfly: Daniel Bell (West Auckland) 52.94, 6; Kent 54.20, 7.
200m individual medley: John Gatfield (SwimZone) 2:01.27, 5; Newall 2:01.91, 6.
50m freestyle: Mark Herring (West Auckland) 22.41, 4; Kent 23.48, 8.
200m backstroke: Dunlop-Barrett 2:05.00, 6.