Swimmers shine at the 2012 London Olympics – Part 4
After the blistering performances of world-class players in their exclusive events on day one of the swimming events at the 2012 London Olympic Games, the crowd was expecting more from their favourite stars on second day.
The second day of the tournament featured swims of 100m backstroke, 200m freestyle, 100m breaststroke, 400m freestyle, and 100m butterfly in Men and Women’s corner.
First event of the night was Women’s 100m backstroke semi-final, where Australian specialist, Emily Seebohm devastated hopes of her opponents and entered the playoff with a fastest qualification effort.
The 20-year-old Seebohm outsmarted her challengers over the finishing end and qualified into the final as most deserving swimmer for gold medal with an effort of 58.39 seconds.
With her epic pace, the Australian swimmer remained 0.27 seconds slower from the world record of 58.12 seconds, made by Gemma Spofforth of Great Britain.
Her scintillating pace was chased by American specialist, Missy Franklin, who stayed one body length apart and made her way to the finishing wall for second position by posting a time of 59.12 seconds.
The American athlete was followed by Aya Terakawa of Japan, who stayed marginally slower from her and hit the wall with an effort of 59.34 seconds. The Japanese swimmer was followed by China’s Jing Zhao and Russian Federation’s Anastasia Zueva, who ended
their swims with timings of 59.55 and 59.68 seconds for fourth and fifth positions respectively.
On the other hand, the audience witnessed sluggish efforts of defending champion, Spofforth, who proved her eligibility for sixth best qualification spot by posting a time of 59.70 seconds.
Afterwards, the semi-finals of Men’s 200m freestyle became the centre of attention of the crowd. The world record holder of the 1500m freestyle, Sun Yang of China posted a top fastest time in the preliminary rounds of the 200m event.
The 20-year-old Yang continued his supremacy in the second round of four-lap discipline and entered the playoff with a timing of 1 minute and 45.61 seconds.
His commendable pace remained two arm-strokes ahead of his closest competitor, Yannick Agnel of France, who made his way into the final round by clocking a time of 1 minute and 45.84 seconds.
Agnel was chased by Korean swimmer, Park Taehwan, who stayed just a stroke apart and finished third in the event with the timing of 1 minutes and 46.02 seconds.
Taehwan was chased by world record holder, Paul Biedermann of Germany, who failed to give tough time to his challengers and qualified as fourth best finisher by producing a time of 1 minute and 46.10 seconds.
Moments later, Women’s 100m breaststroke semi-finals got the attention of the crowd. Rebecca Soni of USA was the strong contender for top qualification spot of the event while close contest was expected from Ruta Meilutyte of Lithuania and Iuliia Efimova
of Russian Federation.
Meilutyte stunned the aquatic crowd by snaring top qualifying position of the event in a new European record time of 1 minute and 05.21 seconds.
She was chased by Soni, who covered the equivalent distance in a time of 1 minute and 05.98 seconds for second place. She was traced by Efimova, who stayed three strokes apart and settled on the finishing blockade as third fastest swimmer with the timing
of 1 minute and 06.57 seconds.
To be continued in Part 5.
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