Hamilton Aquatics stars Velimir Stjepanovic and Lucy Agnew continued to shine in the final session of the club’s Dubai Open at the Hamdan Sports Complex on Saturday.
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Stjepanovic put the seal on a weekend of strong showings by claiming the 200 metre freestyle, the final race of the event. The Serbian won with a time of 1:50.25, comfortably ahead of Hamilton Aquatics team-mate Jakub Karl who earned second at 1:57.66.
Overall, Stjepanovic placed first in all of his five races during the three days, also winning 100m butterfly in 54.49, the 400m freestyle in 3:57.63, the 200m butterfly in 2:02.45 and the 100m freestyle in 50.67 on Friday. The results made him the top scorer with 2,378 points for boys aged 17 and over.
After a difficult stretch leading up to the Dubai Open, Stjepanovic was encouraged with how he physically performed.
“About two weeks ago now, we went to Luxembourg for a competition where we had just gotten down from altitude two weeks prior, so I was feeling the worst. I did much better this meet,” Stjepanovic said.
“It’s always tough to race under hard training and difficult conditions, but it’s going well.”
Despite being at less than full strength in the butterfly, Stjepanovic won both of his divisions in the stroke and hopes he can keep improving going forward.
“The toughest generally for me is the 200m butterfly, especially because I haven’t worked enough on it because I had a back injury post London Olympics,” Stjepanovic said. “I’m just trying to get back into the rhythm of doing butterfly. I feel like it’s coming along well and it will be getting better and better now.”
On the girls’ side, Agnew completed her perfect slate by winning the 200m freestyle in 2:10.00 yesterday.
The 16-year-old placed atop five of her six races, with victories in 200m backstroke in 2:22.70, 200m individual medley in 2:31.02, 400m freestyle in 4:35.97, 100m freestyle in 59.72 and a personal best 1:05.64 in 100m backstroke. She held the spot for girls aged 16 and over with 2,013 points across the three days.
Agnew used the meet as at tune-up for her upcoming competition in England in March.
“It’s a training meet for us because we’re racing in a month in Sheffield, so it was kind of practicing different race skills and different tactics, so we’re all ready to go for a bigger meet next month,” Agnew said.
Other winners yesterday included Isabelle Darling with first in both 50m freestyle and 100m backstroke, as well as Hanah Taleb, fresh off racing at the Algeria National Championships, securing 200m breaststroke.
Mixed in with the swim races this weekend were the development and synchronised swimming galas – a first for the Dubai Open. The events brought a chance of pace in the afternoon sessions of the final two days and further united the region’s swimming disciplines.
“Historically, this competition has just been the elite level,” said Chris Tidey, managing director and coach of Hamilton Aquatics. “We wanted to get more of the aquatic community involved in the same weekend.”
