Swimmer Eneli Jefimova shines in US college season-closing race meet
Swimmer Eneli Jefimova took another win in the United States with her college, North Carolina State, while other Estonians put in some strong performances in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) too.
The NCAA swimming regular season is nearing its end, with the conference championships about to start. Jefimova's home university, NC State (The Wolfpack) faced intra-state rival North Carolina (The Tar Heels) in the regular season closer. Jefimova's team secured a convincing 162:107 victory.
U.S. college swimming races are measured in yards not meters. Skipping the 100-yard distance this time, Jefimova claimed a dominant win in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:10.90, over four seconds ahead of the next best finisher, though well off her PB of 2:07.15 set in November.
For the first time, Jefimova — in her freshman year — also competed in the 50-yard freestyle, doing the two lengths in 23.77 seconds, earning her third place overall. The fastest Estonian this season in that event has been Margaret Markvardt (Penn State) with a time of 22.74.
Next up for Jefimova are the Atlantic Coast Conference Championships on February 18. She will start as the favorite in the 100-yard breaststroke and is also a gold medal contender in the 200-yard round.
Other Estonian swimmers also recently competed in the US college system. Markvardt won the 100-yard butterfly in 53.88, a little slower than her season-best time of 52.68 set the weekend before. In Friday's meet against West Virginia's women's team, Markvardt also swam a season-best in the 100-yard backstroke. Her time of 53.27 was just 0.79 seconds shy of her PB of 52.48 set last year.
Lars Sebastian Antoniak (University of California, Berkeley) was also in action on Friday, faced Stanford. Antoniak raised his game too, setting a PB in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:57.23, which placed him seventh in strong competition, though Berkeley lost 181:119. Antoniak also competed in the 100-yard breaststroke, covering the distance in 54.24.
Christopher Palvadre won the 200-yard breaststroke events for Oakland University (Michigan) against the Cleveland State team with a time of 2:02.27. The icing on the cake was he finished second in the 100-yard event (55.50) while Oakland secured a convincing team victory.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Kristjan Kallaste
