World Cup Berlin Leg #1

Our Funky Trunks athletes Brendon Smith, Ben Armbruster, Isaac Cooper and Max Giuliani lit up the pool in the first leg of the World Cup tour in Berlin.

Queenslander Ben Armbruster appears to be back in fine form after a terrible rib injury that forced him to withdraw from the Australian World Champs trials earlier in the year. On the final night of swimming in the first leg of the World Cup tour, Ben jumped to the top of the new season's world rankings with a blistering 23.08 in the final of the 50m Butterfly. He also won silver in the 100m Butterfly with a time of 51.69, just .03 behind the US sprinter Michael Andrew. Ben swam a 51.67 in the heats.

Tokyo bronze medalist in the 400IM, Brendon Smith, went neck and neck with South Africa's Matthew Sates on the final night of competition in Berlin. Brendon outpaced Sates in the Freestyle leg of the 400IM and touched the wall for gold, beating Sates to win by two-hundredths in a time of 4:13.59.

First-time World Cup swimmer, Tasmanian-turned-Queenslander Max Giuliani, was up against Lithuania's Rapsys in the 200m Free final. Max swam a cracking 27.05 in the final leg but wasn't able to catch Rapsys, touching the wall in 1:46.18 to win silver. Awesome effort from the young gun.

Sprinter Isaac Cooper was just shy of his PB time of 21.65 when he blasted out 21.93 in the 50m Freestyle race on night one, keeping the US's Andrew Michael at bay to win gold. He was back in the pool on night two to face off against Michael again in the 50m Backstroke race where Isaac finished just a tenth behind to win silver with a 24.59. These two will be battling it out throughout the series with the next stop in Greece kicking off on October 13th.

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