Swimming: Fran Halsall at her best, but Duel in the Pool honours go to the US

FRAN Halsall helped set a world best time in the 100 metres freestyle relay but it was not enough to prevent Europe suffering defeat to the United States in the Duel in the Pool 2011 at the Georgia Tech Aquatics Center.

The Americans won the overall event beating Europe 181.5 to 80.5, but Halsall, joined by Denmark’s Jeanette Ottesen, Aliaksandra Herasimenia of Belarus and Dutchwoman Ranomi Kromowidjojo, won their race in three minutes, 27.53 seconds, beating the old mark of 3:28.22 set by the Netherlands three years ago. However, the time will not count as a world record because the swimmers were representing different countries.

Lizzie Simmonds won the 100m backstroke in a time of 56.82 seconds, while Halsall was third in the 50m women’s freestyle as Europe completed a clean sweep of the podium places.

The win for the US meant they have been victorious in all five Duels to date.

“It was good fun,” Halsall said. “But we knew it would be hard to get past the depth of the Americans.

“They had some great swims. They were the better team.”

Halsall and her relay team-mates had plenty of fun, holding off a star-studded US squad with Olympic veteran Natalie Coughlin leading off and 16-year-old Missy Franklin on the anchor leg.

“We had the top four swimmers from the world championships, so we knew it would be quite exciting,” Halsall said. “The Americans stepped up their game.”

There was no uncertainty about how this Duel would turn out after the Americans won 12 of 14 events on the opening day to build an insurmountable lead.

Europe performed better on the second day, winning six of 16 races but they had no chance of chasing down the US.

In fairness to the European squad, many of the continent’s top swimmers skipped the Duel, the every-other-year event launched in 2003 in hopes of boosting interest in swimming beyond the Olympics.

There was only one swimmer each from Russia and Germany, and no one at all from Italy or the powerful French squad, which performed well at the US Winter Nationals two weeks ago in the same pool but with a standard 50-metre course. They passed on the chance to compete at 25 metres.