Young Stars Shine At World Champs
Five medals were won by Funkita athletes at the recent World Championships in Doha, Qatar.
Funkita’s Iona Anderson, Alysha Koloi, and Bettina Fabian shared the spoils in the swimming and diving events which provided vital international experience for athletes before the upcoming Paris Olympics.
Anderson in particular shone, having won three out of those five medals in what was her debut World Championships.
In addition to winning two silvers, Anderson beat her PBs in both the 50m and 100m backstroke with times of 27.45 in the 50m and 59.12 in the 100m. She was also a part of Australia’s gold winning 4x100m medley relay team.
However, the 18-year-old revealed why she feels the meet went so well for her.
“I was in a great spot in my training, so this meet was well timed for me. I was tapered.
“My main outcomes for the meet were to gain experience competing on the Senior International stage and I came in aiming to make finals so to come away with some medals is a bonus.”
Along with Anderson, Alysha Koloi, 22, won her maiden World Championship medal in the 1m springboard diving event beating Commonwealth Games champion Grace Reid to the gold medal with a score of 260.50.
19-year-old open water prospect Bettina Fabian won bronze as part of the Hungarian 4x1500m Mixed relay, her second medal with the team after she won silver last year in Fukuoka.
Fabian’s biggest achievement of the meet however was qualifying for the Olympics in the women’s 10km, finishing 12th with a time of 1:57:36:50, a major improvement from last year’s World Championships (2:03:15.20).
Despite her health being in doubt a fortnight before the competition, Fabian’s incredible result means she will now be competing in Paris in the summer.
“I was absolutely satisfied with this result since I got sick two weeks before the Worlds and I was not sure if I could race there at all.
“My goal was to qualify for the Olympics. Unfortunately, I could not rest right before the race since I had seven days to prepare for 10km. But I am thrilled I succeeded.”
Another Funkita athlete to secure a coveted Olympic berth was Team GB swimmer Leah Crisp who finished 17th in the women’s 10km with a time of 1:57:50.
It has been less than a year since Leah jumped from the pool into the gruelling open water distances which makes her performance even more impressive. The race was extremely close as Leah explained.
“I was also only 23 seconds from the winner after almost 2 hours of racing, which is the closest I've been after starting open water last year.”
South African, two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist Lara van Niekerk narrowly missed bronze in the women’s 50m breaststroke by 0.47s to Italy’s Benedetto Pilato and reached the semi-finals of the 100m breaststroke.
The 20-year-old felt like a lack of training had hindered her chances of winning medals in the meet.
“I am not entirely happy as we could not do a lot of speed work and back-end work because it’s so early in the year. I wasn’t fully prepared.”
Julia Maik was also close to securing a medal as Poland (3:38:65) finished just behind bronze medallists Canada (3:37:95) in the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay.
Ireland’s Grace Davison was part of the 4 x 100m freestyle relay team that aimed to secure an Olympic spot for the team. Grace swam a huge PB of 55.8 which has set her up for Olympic Trials in Dublin.
Diving champ Melissa Wu made the 10m final but struggled to emulate her form from the 2021 championships finished out of the medals in the final.
Fellow F-Teamers on the men’s side were also successful in Doha. Isaac Cooper won gold in the 50m backstroke whilst Jacob Whittle and Joe Litchfield booked Great Britain Olympic spots in the 4x100m men’s freestyle relay and 4x200m men’s freestyle relay after finishing fourth in both.