World and Olympic champion Michael Phelps won the 100-meter butterfly at the US Swimming National Championships Thursday night with the fastest time in the world this year. Phelps led all the way and touched in 50.65 seconds, easily topping the previous quickest 2010 time of 51.70 set by Evgeny Korotyshkin of Russia. Phelps won his 50th career national title, topping Tracy Caulkins' mark of 48. Tyler McGill was second in 52.20, and Timothy Phillips took third. Backstroke specialist Aaron Peirsol finished fourth. The men's 50m freestyle was swum under protest, with Olympian Nathan Adrian declared the official winner after touching first in 21.70 seconds. Olympian Cullen Jones and Josh Schneider shared second at 21.97, but places two through eight were not declared official pending an appeal to USA Swimming's board of directors that was expected to be heard Friday. The controversy involved Schneider, who was entered in the morning heats of the 100m butterfly and 50m free. He failed to show up or scratch out of the fly, which according to the rules meant he was ineligible to swim the rest of the day. His only other event Thursday was the 50 free. Schneider said he didn't know he had been entered in the 100m fly. He recently left Ohio to train in North Carolina. Schneider's coach, David Marsh, appealed to the meet referee, who upheld the rule that he not be allowed to swim. However, he was allowed to swim the prelims under protest while Marsh appealed to the meet jury. The jury upheld the meet referee's decision, but Marsh appealed a third time to a three-person national board of review. They upheld the original decision, triggering a fourth and final appeal to the board of directors. World champion Rebecca Soni won the women's 100m breaststroke with the world's fastest time. Soni was second at the turn, then poured it on down the stretch to win easily in 1 minute, 5.73 seconds. She was 2.34 seconds ahead of second-place Ann Chandler, who touched in 1:08.07. Micah Lawrence was third, to earn a spot at the Pan Pacific championships later this month. Soni beat a loaded field that included world record holder Jessica Hardy, who led at the turn before fading to seventh; 2000 Olympic champion Megan Jendrick, and 1996 Olympic silver medalist Amanda Beard. Jendrick was fourth and Beard sixth. Hardy swam the first 50 meters in 30.92 seconds to Soni's 31.01. But Soni used her trademark strong finish to close in 34.72, while Hardy had the slowest second lap in the eight-woman field at 38.32. Hardy and Soni are the two fastest women ever in the event. They train in the same pool at the University of Southern California, though Hardy is a sprinter and Soni stretches out to 200 meters. Olympian Kara Lynn Joyce won the 50m free in 24.86, just the second national title of her career. She won her first four years ago. Madison Kennedy was second in 25.15. Olympian Amanda Weir was third. Caitlin Leverenz won the 400 individual medley in 4:35.60. Ariana Kukors was second, and American record holder Katie Hoff was third. Ferretti, Hester win 5K open Luca Ferretti of Italy and Linsy Heister of the Netherlands won the 5-km open water races at the European Swimming Championships in Hungary Thursday. Ferretti clocked 58 minutes, 43.4 seconds, beating teammate Simone Ercoli by 17.1 seconds. Spyridon Gianniotis of Greece and Simone Ruffini of Italy tied for third. Defending champion Thomas Lurz of Germany, who won the 10K race Wednesday, was fifth. Heister won the 5K women's race in 2 hours, 1 minute, 6.7 seconds, just 0.9 seconds faster than Giorgia Consiglio of Italy. Angela Maurer of Germany was third.
