Antoni Ponce secures win in Lignano

Spaniard world champion Antoni Ponce showed great form by taking gold on the second day of competition (31 May) at the World Para Swimming World Series in Lignano Sabbiadoro, Italy.

The 31-year-old finished first in the men’s 100m breaststroke after scoring 993 points. Italian Stefano Raimondi (983) and Spaniard Oscar Salguero Galisteo (975) followed him into the podium.

A standardised points system is used to calculate each athletes' results as swimmers from multiple categories compete in each event.

Italian victories

Efrem Morelli (921 points) gave the hosts the first reason to celebrate on Friday as he swam to gold in the men’s 50m breaststroke. He finished ahead of Austria’s Andreas Ernhofer (642) and Greece’s Ioannis Kostakis (533).

Italy also landed gold through Simone Barlaam (969) in the men’s 100m backstroke, with Belarus’ most decorated Paralympian Ihar Boki (963) and Italian Riccardo Menciotti (947) coming in second and third, respectively.

More winners

Great Britain’s Rio 2016 gold medallist Alice Tai (1,112) finished first in the women’s 100m backstroke. Spanish Paralympic champion Nuria Marques Soto (1,031) and Italy’s Carlotta Gilli (991) completed the podium.

Czech Republic’s Dominika Mickova (535) won the women’s 50m breaststroke, followed by Germany’s Gina Boettcher (268) and Italy’s Angela Procida (250).

Russian Elizaveta Barbatina (973), German Verena Schott (932) and Hungarian Fanni Illes (931) made up the podium in the women’s 100m breaststroke.

Competition is being live streamed on World Para Swimming’s website. Full results are available on the event’s official website.

The season finale World Series event will again take place in Berlin, Germany, for the third year in a row, between 6 and 9 June.