|
SINGAPORE, Nov. 15-- Xu Jiayu, Li Zhuhao and Yan Zibei brought China three gold medals in three different strokes at the FINA Swimming World Cup in Singapore on Thursday. In the men's 200m backstroke, China's world champion Xu Jiayu, led from the beginning to the end (1:48.93), beating Mitchell Larkin of Australia (1:49.28). "I had a rusty morning heat performance and was almost out of the final...I could not let the winning opportunity get away from me anymore in the final," said Xu, who smashed a new world record (48.88) in the 100m backstroke in Tokyo. Li Zhuhao won the 100m butterfly (49.64) and Matthew Temple of Australia took silver (50.60) in the same race. Singapore's Rio Olympic champion Joseph Schooling finished fourth (51.05). In the absence of his strong rival Kirill Prigoda of Russia, Yan Zibei swam his personal best time (56.34) in the men's 100m breaststroke, beating Anton Chupkov of Russia (56.69) and Ilya Shymanovich of Belarus (56.81) World Cup men's point leader Vladimir Morozov confirmed his domination in the 100m individual medley with a time of 50.31, 0.05 seconds away from his own world record (50.26) which he equaled in Tokyo last week. He later shattered the World Cup record in the 50m freestyle (20.48), with a time 0.01 faster than in Tokyo. Morozov made a clean sweep of the event in all the seven legs of the World Cup this year. Australia's Rio 2016 champion Mack Horton secured a narrow victory in the men's 400m freestyle (3:41.44) as he edged Velimir Stjepanovic of Serbia (3:41.52) and Blake Pieroni of the United States (3:41.94). | 
