Hosszu misses hat trick at swimming World Cup

The 2009 world 400-meter medley champion Katinka Hosszu of Hungary narrowly missed what would have been a second hat-trick at the short-course swimming World Cup meet in Tokyo yesterday. The 23-year-old, who won the women’s 200m and 800m freestyle and 200m individual medley races on Tuesday, added two gold medals in the 400m individual medley and 200m butterfly in 4:28.14 and 2:05.90, respectively. But she had to settle for runner-up place in the 100m individual medley, behind Britain’s Sophie Allen, who logged 59.50, and the 400m freestyle to Melissa Ingram of New Zealand, who clocked 4:05.22. Japan’s Daiya Seto, who marked a new World Cup record of 4:00.02 to win the men’s 400m individual medley on Tuesday, made it a double by winning the 200m in 1:52.48, beating Darian Townsend of South Africa into second and his compatriot Kosuke Hagino into third. Beijing Olympic dual gold medallist Britta Steffen of Germany easily won the women’s 100m freestyle in 52.42, beating Jeanette Ottesen Gray of the Netherlands and Kotuku Ngawati of Australia. The 2011 world 100m freestyle champion Jeanette Ottesen Gray of Denmark won the women’s 50m butterfly in 25.48, while American world record holder Jessica Hardy won the women’s 50m breaststroke in 29.92. The Australian duo of Grace Loh and Rachel Goh clocked 57.71 and 57.72, respectively, to beat world record holder Shiho Sakai of Japan into third in 58.44. The Tokyo meet was the seventh leg of the eight-round World Cup series this season, with the final meet in Singapore on Nov. 10-11.