Day seven was another successful day for the Americans in the pool as they won three of the four gold medals on offer while also managing to claim a handful of minor medals just for good measure as they overtook China for the overall medal lead.
WOMEN’S 200m BACKSTROKE
America’s teen sesation Missy Franklin got the night’s action off to a flying start by smashing the field in the final of the 200 backstroke. As if winning the race by nearly 2 seconds wasn’t good enough, Franklin also managed to smash Krist Coventry’s old world record by 0.75 seconds in a time of 2:04.06 for another gold medal. Coming in second was Anastasia Zueva from Russia while American Elizabeth Beisel claimed the bronze. Coventry meanwhile was in the pool for the breaking of her world record as she could only managed sixth spot over 4 seconds behind Franklin.
MEN’S 100m BUTTERFLY
In his final individual event at these Olympics (and possibly ever, unless he has a more successful comeback than Ian Thorpe) Michael Phelps wanted to go out on a high note. While it wasn’t his pet IM races, Phelps still managed to win the race by a quarter of a second. No bronze was awarded for this race as two swimmers managed to finish in a dead heat for second place. South Africa’s Chad le Clos, who was almost apologetic after winning the 200 butterfly over Phelps this time had to settle for second place tied with Evgeny Korotyshkin of Russia.
WOMEN’S 800m FREESTYLE
The trend for these games has been the failure of the 2008 gold medallists to defend their titles and local hope Rebecca Adlington continued that let down in her favoured event. Despite her best efforts she finished a disappointing third behind Mireia Belmonte Garcia of Spain who claimed the silver. The gold went to Katie Ledecky of the USA as she was over four seconds clear by the end of the race.
MEN’S 50m FREESTYLE
In the blink and you’ll miss it, splash and dash 50m freestyle race, it was a Frenchman situated in one of the outside lanes who burst through and stole the gold medal. Florent Manaudou blazed through the water for a surprising gold medal for his country. American Cullen Jones (not the Eagles defensive end, though seeing him swimming this race would be kind of fun) claimed second pipping out favourite and fastest qualifier Cesar Cielo of Brazil who himself had to battle for third as his countryman Bruno Fratus was a fingernail length behind him.
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