Soni, Mellouli Close Worlds With Golds
December 20, 2010 | Women's Swimming & Diving
Dec. 20, 2010
A month ago, former USC great Rebecca Soni was named USA Swimming Female Athlete of the year for 2010. Last week at the FINA Short Course World Championships in Dubai, UAE, she showed the swimming world the honor was more than well-deserved.
The 2008 Olympic gold medalist and 2009 World Championship gold medalist completed a brilliant meet on Sunday, capturing her third gold medal and fourth medal overall with a win in the 200m breaststroke.
Joining her in the Sunday medal haul was fellow former Trojan Ous Mellouli, who, while swimming for Tunisia, also won his fourth medal of the event by claiming first in the 1500m free.
Soni completed her domination of the breaststroke events by winning the 200m breast in 2:16.39, winning wire-to-wire, well ahead of second place Ye Sun from China (2:18.09) and Denmark's Rikke Moeller Pedersen (2:18.82). Soni also won golds in the 50m and 100m breast and a silver in the 4x100 medley relay.
Mellouli, the 2008 Olympic gold medalist in the 1500m free, won the short course mile Sunday in dominating fashion. His winning time of 14:24.16 was more than 11 seconds ahead of second-place Peter Vanderkaay (14:35.25). Mellouli was ahead after the first 50 meters and never gave it up. Mellouli also won a silver in the 400m IM and bronzes in the 200m and 400m free.
Trojan junior Katinka Hosszu and sophomore Clement Lefert each raced twice individually in the meet. Hosszu finished fourth in both the 200m fly (2:04.56) and the 200m IM (2:06.88) while Clement Lefert was 17th in the 200m free (1:44.82) and 32nd in the 100m fly (52.54). All four times were school records.
Players Mentioned
