Challenging day ahead for Phelps

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-08-15 08:19

Michael Phelps didn't have any finals scheduled yesterday and he went through his 200m individual medley semifinals with the second fastest time.

Compatriot Ryan Lochte come in one-hundredth of a second faster, setting up a mouth-watering clash in today's final.

"I just wanted to win my heat," Phelps said, implying he had something in reserve. "I guess it's going to be me and Ryan in the middle tomorrow. It's fine, it's all I wanted to do."

Later, Phelps lost his 100m butterfly Olympic record to Serbian Milorad Cavic, who clocked 50.76 sec to emerge the fastest in the heats. Phelps was second fastest in 50.87.

Katie Hoff ended her Olympics with a shocker. She failed to advance to the 800m freestyle finals, finishing 11th overall in yesterday's heats.

Hoff thus ended her second Games without a coveted gold medal, despite swimming five individual events. She settled for a silver, two bronzes and a pair of fourth-place finishes.

Rebecca Adlington from Great Britain was the fastest qualifier in a new Olympic record time of 8:18.06. She has already won the 400m free gold.

In the women's 100m freestyle, Australia's world-record holder Libby Trickett needed a lucky break to sneak into the final. She qualified only after China's Pang Jiaying, who touched first in the second semifinal, was disqualified for a false start.

Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe swam a fast 2:06.76 in the women's 200m backstroke heats, smashing Hungarian Krisztina Egerszegi's16-year-old Olympic record (2:07.06).

Having claimed three silver medals and a world record time in the 100m backstroke earlier this week, Coventry now eyes a gold: "I really want this one. I want to take care of this one. No matter what, I will go down fighting," she said.

Elizabeth Simmonds of Great Britain and Australia's Meagen Nay finished second and third, both more than a second behind the Zimbabwean.

Agencies

(China Daily 08/15/2008 page6)