Mark Maloney on Kentucky sports

BEIJING — Lexington’s Elaine Breeden finished fourth in her heat and ninth overall during preliminaries of the Beijing Olympics women’s 200-meter butterfly, held Tuesday night in The Water Cube. That moves her on to Wednesday’s semifinals.

Breeden said she was disappointed with her placement but pleased with her time.

She finished in 2:07.92. Aurore Mongel of France won the heat in 2:06.49. Fastest time of the night went to China’s Liu Zige in 2:06.41.

Semifinals are set for Wednesday morning in Beijing (Tuesday night in the U.S.), with finals about 24 hours later.

“Get a good sleep tonight and be ready for a fast swim tomorrow,” Breeden said. “I’m really happy to see my family up in the stands.”

Although Breeden’s family has been here since the Games opened, they had not been able to make contact until Elaine spotted them in the stands Tuesday.

Breeden, a Stanford University junior out of Lexington’s Trinity Christian Academy, was eliminated Sunday in the semifinals of the 100 fly, but the 200 is her better event.

“I was really nervous after the 100-meter fly didn’t go my way,” she said. “I battled demons all day. That shook my confidence. But I’m pleased with my performance. I just wanted to get into the semifinals.”

Teammate Kathleen Hersey also advanced, winning her heat in 2:07.65 (seventh overall).

“I felt pretty nervous. I had knots in my stomach most of the day,” Hersey said. “This was the most nerve-wracking swim I’d had since the (U.S. Olympic) Trials. The crowd really gets you going, though.”

World record-holder Jessicah Schipper of Australia was fourth in Hersey’s heat and 11th overall.

“It is only a heat. Perhaps I did swim a little too slow,” Schipper said. “Maybe I didn’t put as much effort in as I should have considering how the heats are going at the moment. I didn’t do myself any favors going out that slow.”

David Walters, Ricky Berens, Erik Vendt and Klete Keller combined in the semifnals of the men’s 4-by-200-meter relay to post an Olympic-record time of 7:04.66. Australia held the old record of 7:07.05, set in 2000 at Sydney.

University of Louisville senior Vali Preda, eliminated earlier in the first round of the men’s 100-meter breaststroke, did not start Tuesday’s 200 breaststroke.

Italy’s Paolo Bossini broke the Olympic record in advancing to the semifinals. His time of 2:08.98 bested the time of 2:09.44 set by world record-holder Kosuke Kitajima of Japan in 2004.

However, Bossini didn’t have the record very long. Two heats later, Daniel Gyurta of Hungary churned out a 2:08.68 record-breaker.

U.S. entrants Eric Shanteau and Scott Spann both advanced. Shanteau ranked seventh overall (2:10.29), with Spann 10th (2:10.61).

Earlier, Team USA’s Garrett Weber-Gale and Jason Lezak advanced to the semifinals of the men’s 100-meter freestyle. Weber-Gale ranked eighth overall (48.19). Lezak, the anchor-leg hero of the gold-medal 4-by-100 relay Monday, was 11th (48.33). Eamon Sullivan, the world record-holder from Australia, was the fastest qualifier (47.80).

“Yesterday was very emotional for me,” said Weber-Gale, referring to the world-record relay. “It has been a pretty tiring day coming off that high in the morning. I got into the pool today to cool myself down from the record and excitement. I’m just taking it one day at a time.”

Said Lezak: “I was a little tired. I just wanted to get to the semifinals and not make the same mistakes as Athens (where he didn’t qualify for semifinals). So I went out hard.”

This entry was posted on August 12, 2008 at 7:26 am and is filed under Elaine Breeden, Kentucky, Lexington, Olympics, Swimming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.