Swimming at the 1997 Summer Universiade

The swimming competition during the 1997 Summer Universiade, also known as the XIX Summer Universiade, was a long course event (50 m), and took place in Messina, on the island of Sicily, Italy from August 24 till August 30, 1997.

__TOC__One of the long-awaited stars of the Universiade was the South African double Olympic champion Penny Heyns, who had in fact first emerged into the sports limelight two years earlier at the Fukuoka Universiade. But in Sicily, the breaststroke specialist started by placing fourth in the 200 m finals. Heyns, who took the first Olympic gold for post-apartheid South Africa, started out smartly enough in Messina. In the first 50 metres she was impressive, but she weakened throughout the event, finishing in 4th place in 2:32.13 - a slower time than the one she had recorded earlier that same morning. Winner Masami Tanaka (Japan) took it in 2:30.24. Heyns was distinctly stronger in the 100 metres, but only managed a second in 1:10.15, behind the Ukraine's Svetlana Bondarenko.

Yann deFabrique of France, a student in his last year of law school at the University of North Carolina in the U.S., reached an absolute record, taking a silver in the 4x200 m Freestyle, and bringing his total number of Universiade medals in three Universiades to eight.

Technical conditions in Messina dashed athletes' hopes of beating the stopwatch; this was owing to the water temperature, which was under 25 degrees Celsius due to storms that broke out over Sicily at the end of August. The two Universiade records were set by Martina Moravcová (Slovakia) in the 200 m Freestyle, and the U.S. Men's Relay Team in the 4x100 m Freestyle. Moravcová, a student at Southern Methodist University in the U.S., became the queen of the competition, taking four individual titles and breaking a Universiade record.

The U.S. team accumulated 26 medals against Japan's 16; but never had so many countries been contenders for the swimming medals in a Universiade. The winners came from eleven different countries, with sixteen countries taking medals. Cuba's Neisser Bent, who took the gold in the 100 m and the silver in the 200 m Backstroke, also marked the end of an era in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, when he took the bronze in the 200 m, distinguishing himself as the first black swimmer.

Men's events

Women's events

References

* [http://wwwfisu.ulb.ac.be/html/sswimming.html Results on FISU-site]
* [http://www.swimrankings.net/index.php?page=meetDetail&meetId=1288 swimrankings]