If Cate or Bronte Campbell can take the title, Australia will have both the men’s and women’s 100m freestyle champion at the same Olympic Games for only the third time ever.
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World record holder Cate was fastest, breaking the Olympic record of 52.78 that she had set earlier in the heats with a time of 52.71 seconds, while younger sibling Bronte was fifth in the final eight.
The dream of Campbell sisters Cate and Bronte to quinella the Olympic 100m freestyle has come under siege from a towering Canadian teenager that threw down a serious challenge in the semi-finals on Wednesday night. No U.S. swimmer has finished better than bronze in this race since Jenny Thompson’s silver in 1992.
Ranomi Kromowidjojo of the Netherlands, the defending Olympic champion, looked relaxed after going through in fourth place with a time of 53.43.
The 100-meter semifinals are Wednesday night at 9:12 p.m. EDT. “I backed off a little bit in the last 30m and stretched out my stroke and saved a little bit more”, McKeown said. You never can tell.
Bronte won the 100m freestyle title at the World Championships in Russian Federation past year and is now looking to add Olympic gold to her collection of medals. Still, she knows there now stands a credible threat to her ambitions of sharing the top two tiers of the podium with her sister. Action gets under way this afternoon with the Day Five preliminary heats – women’s 100 freestyle, men’s 200 backstroke, women’s 200 breaststroke, men’s 200 individual medley and women’s 800 freestyle relay. “I’m not going to predict I’ll go faster in the final but I was definitely having a look, seeing where I was and making sure I got through”, Bronte said. “Tomorrow night I want to stick to my plan and execute it as best I can”.
“It’s been a bloody awesome time for me”, Groves said of her first Olympics.
“Tomorrow is the realisation of my dream. That’s how she races well, by racing herself, whereas I tend to build into it a little more”.
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The women’s 100m freestyle could produce a rare double for the Australian swim team.
