The injuries hit the muscles, but never the Spirit, if we talk about champions.
Mireia Belmonte is, from start to finish, a knowing the possibilities of her, dominating the scene.
She cost time, initial steps by the frustrating Olympic Silver, as in Beijing, but gold gave him the domain of the tables.
In Tokyo she put it in value, with a fourth place in the 400 styles that does not give access to the podium, but after a year of calamities, she is a huge value.
It does not shine, but weighs.
At age 30, there is swimmer, there is a champion.
They separated 23 hundredths, although for less margin, only two, the gold was hung up in the 200 river butterfly, where he achieved the bronze in the same end in which he was fourth in Tokyo.
In the styles, then, there has been no great variation in the posts, but in time.
Then, 4: 32.39;
Now, 4: 35.15.
With less demand, she is just as competitive.
The hundredths are medals in the water.
The tenths, an eternity.
The final was less rapid than usual, as all those that were played at the Aquatic Center of Tokyo, except for the world record of 4×100 (3: 29.69) with which Australians initiate their attack on Tokyo.
In most cases, there were even worse times in the finals than in the semifinals, a consequence of playing the first in the morning, due to the demands of retransmissions in the United States.
They want them in their ‘Prime Time’.
Who else pays, sends.
Mireia, expert, knew that he had an opportunity for that.
She was not, instead, for a fast race.
She spent fifth the butterfly post, fell to the sixth on her back and began to go back at the moment of her, her arm.
She finished her fourth.
The free was the final attack on bronze hunting, but Hali Flickinger did not allow it.
She resisted the American to finish in 4: 34.90.
La Española in those 4: 35.13, nearly four seconds of the national record of it (4: 31.21).
Both very far from the winner, the Japanese Ohashi Yui, incontestable to overcome 4: 32.08.
Mireia resisted, however, better than Katinka Hosszu, generation companion.
Hungarian, with the record of the world (4: 26.36), did not lose a final of 400 styles from London.
In Tokyo, she stayed out of the podium.
A symptom of generational change that Mireia, at the moment, resists.
The 800 and 1,500 of her await you with better feelings of which she brought.
“If they tell me a few months ago, I do not believe it,” Mireia said, in reference to the injuries he has suffered.
He never knows a fourth place, the “chocolate medal”, as Carmen Valero said, but he was celebrated having recovered sensations in the last post, the Crolle, facing his performance at 800 and 1,500, the pure background: “I have
that take advantage of that letter. ”
