At just over the half way point of the swimming competition in Beijing, seventeen British records and sixteen World records, six today, have been broken. Former GB Olympic medallist Steve Parry highlighted this saying, "It has been a morning of smashing what I thought were unbreakable records. Britain are progressing all the time but so are the rest of the world."
Britain's first swimmer in today's competition schedule was Caitlin McClatchey. She had a strong finishing 50m in the Women's 200m freestyle final, but could still only finish in sixth position in 1:57.65, 2.6 seconds off the bronze medal position time. "I'm pretty pleased with that. The medals all went to times under the old world record so it was a massive ask to be among them. My aim in this event was to improve and lower my time so in that sense it's been a success. The relay is big event for the team and we've shown we are swimming well. This teams doing a great job and I'm proud to be a part of it," said McClatchey.
The gold medal went to Federica Pellegrini (Italy) who lead from the start and take nearly a second off the World record she set in the heats two days ago. She won in 1:54.82 with Sara Isakovic (Slovenia) won the silver medal with Jiaying Pang (China) finishing in bronze medal position in 1:55.05.
In the Women's 200m butterfly, Gemma Lowe had a fantastic swim leading the field for the majority of the race, turning in 59.97 after the first one hundred metres. Unfortunately she could not maintain the pace in the last 10 metres, finishing third in her semi-final, ninth overall, in 2:07.07 and missing out on a place in the final in 0.14 seconds. "I went out hard and gave it my best shot which was the plan but found it difficult to carry it through. I paid for the early pace but I knew it would take a fast time to make the final," reflected Lowe, who continued "the medley relay is my focus now and I've shown I've got the pace to make a difference."
Team mate Ellen Gandy had a tough lane draw, swimming from lane one next to Australian Jessicah Schipper. Schipper, bronze medallist from the 100m butterfly, qualified for the final as second fastest in 2:06.34. Gandy who finished fifteenth overall in 2:10.60, fifteenth said,"I'm disappointed but shouldn't be. I've had glandular fever and that was only my second race since I came through the other end," looking to the future she said "I'll stay positive, I'm 17 years old in two days, its my first Games, a learning experience and was great to get a second swim." Liuyang Jiao qualified fastest for the final in 2:06.42.
After a very close finish in the Women's 200m Individual Medley final Stephanie Rice (Australia) touched out Zimbabwe's Kirsty Coventry, lowering her own World record to 2:08.45. Rice has now completed an Individual Medley double by winning the 200m and 400m IM. Coventry finished in 2:08.59 and Natalie Coughlin finished third in 2:10.34
