Swimming: Hardcastle splashes out with gold

Saturday 02 December 1995 00:02 GMT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.

The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.

Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.

Swimming

Sarah Hardcastle raced to a 800m freestyle gold medal success at the World Short Course Championships in Rio de Janeiro last night. Hardcastle, who claimed silver and bronze medals at the 1984 Olympics, sprinted home in 8min 26.46sec - 0.57sec ahead of her Dutch rival, Carla Geurts.

After her victory, Hardcastle paid tribute to her husband, Lee, who encouraged her to make a comeback after a six- year lay-off. "Lee and I have been through a lot and this makes up for it," she said.

Karen Pickering, the defending champion, lost her title, but put up a fighting performance to win the B final of the 200m freestyle. She finished in 2:01.13, just 0.01sec ahead of Greece's Antonia Machera. Following the withdrawal of Germany's Franziska van Almsick, Claudia Poll of Costa Rica took gold in a world-record time of 1:55.42.

Results, Sporting Digest, page 27

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in