Having earned his 19th Olympic gold medal the night before and not gone to sleep until 3am, he was also slightly slow out of the blocks and finished only fifth fastest among the semi-final qualifiers, having slightly varied his customary pre-swim preparations.
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Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky, both already owners of Rio Olympics gold medals, safely advanced to the semifinals in the 200m butterfly and 200m freestyle, respectively, after racing in the preliminary heats Monday afternoon.
World champion Peaty clocked 57.13 seconds, slicing nearly half a second off the mark he set in Saturday’s heats to emulate Adrian Moorhouse’s victory in the same event at the 1988 Seoul Games – the last time a British male swimmer won gold.
It’s a bit sad that Ledecky’s colleagues can’t simply celebrate her achievements and rejoice that they’re on the same team with the best swimmer in the world, but find themselves worrying about being “beaten by a girl”.
In a hallway beneath the Olympic Aquatics Stadium, Missy Franklin was surrounded by the media after her first race of the Rio de Janeiro Games. Coverage continues with a swimming showdown in the men’s 100m free between 2012 gold medalist Nathan Adrian of the US and Australian sprint star Cameron McEvoy, plus a favored American quartet in the women’s 4x200m free relay, led by freestyle phenom Ledecky and five-time Olympic medalist Missy Franklin.
United States’ Katie Ledecky competes in a women’s 200-meter freestyle heat during the swimming competitions at the 2016 Summer Olympics, Monday, Aug. 8, 2016, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She finished 12th in the preliminary heats and has struggled to repeat her performance from the 2012 Olympics, where she won four gold medals.
“That would mean the world to me”, she said. After winning his first Rio Olympic gold medal Monday night in the 4x100m freestyle relay – he said it was the fastest 100m freestyle he’d ever swum in his life – Phelps told Tafoya he finally got to bed around 3:00 a.m. local time.
Franklin isn’t anywhere close to the form she showed four years ago.
While it was about a second off her world record 2:06.12 from the 2015 World Championships, it was fast enough for her to move into the semifinals with the top time. “Each day, day in day out, I just gave it absolutely everything”. “I was really relaxed”. Overshadowing the vast medal haul of her prolific male counterpart, Michael Phelps, will be hard but there is no mistaking the biggest dorsal fin in the women’s competition.
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“I think I’m capable of doing that but we will see”, said Cseh when asked whether this was his moment to beat Phelps. “Once I get going it’s kind of hard to stop”.
