Victory for Sjöström during intense final session: "Feeling extremely strong"

Just four days after the European Championship successes with her six medals during the European Short Course Championships in Kazan, Russia, the next competition for Sarah Sjöström began tonight.

The playoffs in ISL, International Swimming League, where eight teams make up for four final places. 

Sjöström, who swims for Energy standard, who won the first edition of ISL 2019, had an intense first night with four races.

First out, 100 meters butterfly where Sjöström finished second with a time of 56:22, 77 hundredths behind the victorious American Kelsi Dahlia.

Half an hour later, Sjöström swam the last distance in 51:57 when she, together with her teammates, took the victory and important points in the team race in the 4x100 meter freestyle.

Convincing victory of 50 free

Less than 15 minutes later, Sjöström was back in the pool and took a convincing victory in the 50 meter freestyle, the distance where she took European Championship gold last week.

Sjöström took command immediately and won clearly, a full 43 hundredths ahead of Ranomi Kromowidjojo from the Netherlands who holds the world record for the distance in the short course.

- It is definitely very different here.

You really have to try to recover quickly between races.

But I really like this type of race, even if it's harder to break records and so on, said Sarah Sjöström in the victory interview with Mark Foster in Eurosport.

28-year-old Sjöström then swam the freestyle distance for the team in the final medley team race 4x100 meter medley.

Her time, 50.88, was the fastest of all in the freestyle but the team was defeated by Cali Condors who won the team race just over two seconds ahead of Sjöström's Energy Standard.

Cali Condors, who is the reigning champion in ISL, also tops the score in the match before competition day two tomorrow when the same four teams meet again. 

Erik Persson swam just like Sarah Sjöström at the European Championships and missed the bronze in the 200 breaststroke with a paltry 11 hundredths, despite the Swedish record in the final with 2.02.18.

Persson who swims for the team Iron Swim tonight took second place in the 200 meter breaststroke with a time of 2:03:92.

The winner was EC gold medalist Ilya Shymanovich, 15 hundredths ahead of Persson who individually also swam 50 breasts tonight where he was eight. 

Another three Swedish national team swimmers are on site in Eindhoven: Sara Junevik, Michelle Coleman and Louise Hansson.

But their team Toronto Titans starts the playoffs on Saturday.