Poleska Wins 200 Breaststroke Silver at World Championships
8/1/2005 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving
A year after winning an Olympic bronze medal, Alabama swimmer Anne Poleska grabbed a silver medal at the World Championships being held in Montreal, Canada this week.
Poleska, who closed out her Crimson Tide career with a runner-up finish at the 2005 NCAA Championships in the 200 breaststroke, finished more than a second ahead of the rest of the field in the 200 breaststroke with a time of 2:25.84. She finished behind Australia's Leisel Jones, whose 2:21.72 set a world record in the race. Jones was second at last summer's Olympic Games.
The Krefeld, Germany native was first after the preliminaries and the second seed coming out of the semi-finals. She shaved almost two seconds off her time between prelims and finals.
Poleska was the first Alabama swimmer to win an individual medal at the Olympic Games since 1984. During her Tide career, she finished in the top three in the 200 breaststroke all four years, including a pair of runner-up finishes. Her finish in Montreal was just two hundredths of a second off her time at the Athens Olympics.
Rising junior Vlad Polyakov, representing Kazakhstan, finaled in the men's 200 breaststroke, taking eighth place with a 2:12.72. The final was hotly contested, with the difference between fourth and eighth place clocking in at three tenths of a second.
Polyakov, who was the event leader after the preliminary round, won two bronze medals at last fall's World Short Course Championships. He also posted a pair of fifth place finishes at the Athens Olympics. This past spring, he won Alabama's fifth individual NCAA swimming and diving title since 1998. Polyakov set the Southeastern Conference record in the 200 breaststroke last season and as a freshman, he finished second in the nation in the 200 breaststroke.
Polyakov and Poleska were joined at the World Championships by two-time NCAA 200 butterfly champion Stefan Gherghel and rising senior Waleed Al-Qahtani.
