Gold medal at Maccabiah Games
AUSTRALIAN junior swimmer Marni Burger (centre) with her gold medal after winning the 200-metre butterfly at the Maccabiah Games. Israeli swimmers Shir Wasserman (silver) and Rotem Epshtein (bronze) join her in celebrating. Burger also won a silver medal in the 100m butterfly.
DANIEL GARB
TEENAGE swimming sensation Marni Burger has ensured Australia’s first night in the pool in Israel was a golden one by smashing the field in the junior girls 200 metre butterfly. The 16-year-old Victorian swam a time of 2.19.29 in her pet event – 4 seconds faster than her nearest rival to win Australia’s second gold medal at the Maccabiah Games.
She also took home a silver in the 100 metres freestyle to live up to her billing as one of the Aussie delegation’s big medal hopes.
Fellow gun junior Ashleigh Smart finished fourth in the same race. Earlier, Greg Shein went close to ending a 16 year individual medal drought in the open division by swimming a personal best to finish fourth in the 200 metres breastroke.
Junior Joshua Balsim was another to just miss out on a medal for Australia after leading the 200 metres butterfly for the majority of the race only to fall away in the final 50 and finish fourth.
Other highlights from the evening included a personal best from David Schnabl in the 100 metres freestyle won by Jason Lezak.
He finished eighth but was delighted with his time and thrilled to swim next to the three time Olympic gold medlalist who obliterated the field to win his first gold medal of the meet.
“Lezak and I unzipped each other’s suits after the race so that was the highlight for me,” he said.
Smart finished 5th in the junior 200 metre breastroke final to go with her impressive freestyle race, Yuriy Burunov was 7th in the 200 metre butterfly while Avi Bart and Julian Kowal both swam personal bests in the Juniors.
comments