Swimmers shine at the 2012 London Olympics – Part 3
After the commendable form of Chinese specialist, Ye Shiwen in the Women’s 400m IM, the attention of the crowd was shifted towards the Men’s 100m breaststroke final.
The audience could not wait to experience the furious efforts of Cameron van der Burgh, Christian Sprenger, Brendan Hansen, and the defending champion, Kosuke Kitajima.
With his furious efforts in the earlier rounds, the South African swimmer, van der Burgh was evidently strong for gold medal of the discipline while greater efforts were expected from Australia’s Sprenger and Japan’s Kitajima.
An upsetting performance in the semi-finals of the discipline was seen from the American record holder of the discipline, Eric Shanteau of USA, who failed to qualify for the final round.
Nevertheless, the South African swimmer went full throttle from the start and gained a half body length lead over his opponents. With his unmatchable efforts in the second half, he kept on enhancing lead over his challengers and surfaced on the finishing
blockade for gold medal.
He continued his nerve-wrecking form throughout the event and grabbed gold medal of the discipline in a world record time of 58.46 seconds. His meticulous effort remained nearly half a second ahead of his following swimmer, Sprenger, who emerged on the finishing
blockade as second position holder by producing a nice time of 58.93 seconds.
Subsequently, third finest spot of the event was obtained by American expert, Brendan Hansen, who remained half body length behind and tapped the finishing blockade with a wonderful effort of 59.49 seconds.
The bronze medallist was chased by Daniel Gyurta of Hungary, who remained 0.04 seconds slower from upsetting his former finisher and settled on the wall as fourth position holder by submitting a fantastic effort of 59.53 seconds.
Following that, the audience witnessed sluggish efforts of Kitajima, who failed to secure any spot on the podium in his main event. Despite of his early 2012 performance, where he posted 58.90 seconds for the Asian record, Kitajima completed his sprint in
a time of 59.79 seconds for fifth position.
Afterwards, the focus shifted towards the last event of the first night, Women’s 4*100m freestyle relay, where Australia, Netherlands, USA, and China were strong contenders for the podium.
The relay team of Australia included Alicia Coutts, Cate Campbell, Brittany Elmslie, and Melanie Schlanger. With their invincible efforts, the Australian squad stifled hopes of their opponents and occupied gold medal of the discipline in a new Olympic record
time of 3 minutes and 33.15 seconds.
The gold winning squad remained 0.64 seconds ahead of relay team of Netherlands that followed them on the medal rostrum for silver medal by finishing their race in a time of 3 minutes and 33.79 seconds.
The Dutch team was chased by relay squad of United States that remained 0.45 seconds slower from their foregoing finisher and settled on the finishing end as bronze medallist by touching the wall with the timing of 3 minutes and 34.24 seconds.
Subsequently, Chinese team remained considerably slower from USA and transpired on the finishing end as fourth best finishers with an effort of 3 minutes and 36.75 seconds.
In addition, Australian team expressed happiness over their commendable win as they received huge appreciation from the crowd for their gruelling efforts in the 100m freestyle relay.
To be continued in Part 4.
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