Great shocked as ‘targeted’ crackdown causes chaos

Aussie swimming great Giaan Rooney said she’s never seen so many disqualifications as have been handed out at the World Championships in Melbourne this week.

During Friday morning’s 200m breast stroke heats, four swimmers were disqualified across the men and women.

Speaking on Wide World of Sports‘ coverage, Rooney believed officials were targeting the breast stroke in particular.

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“Most of them have come in breast stroke, so they must be targeting that double kick underwater,” she said.

But it’s not just in the breast stroke that swimmers are being disqualified.

Elsewhere, the Netherlands lost a bronze medal in the final of the mixed 4x50m medley relay on Wednesday night after the final changeover was completed fractionally too early. Germany were also disqualified from the same race for the same infraction.

The FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) will be broadcast exclusively live and free on Nine and 9Now from December 13-18.

French star Maxime Grousset was also disqualified from the semi finals of the 100m individual medley on Thursday night after he was judged to have not been on his back when he touched the wall at the end of the backstroke leg.

Rooney said she the number of disqualifications was remarkable for a World Championships.

“It’s amazing how many,” she said.

Elsewhere, the Aussie men have qualified for the final in the 4x50m freestyle relay.

Kyle Chalmers has qualified ninth for the semi finals of the men’s 50m freestyle, which will be held on Friday night.

Of the Aussie women, Jenna Strauch has qualified for the 200m breast stroke final on Friday night, while Meg Harris and Emma McKeon have both qualified for Friday night’s semi finals of the 50m freestyle.

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