Mark Maloney on Kentucky sports

 BEIJING – Elaine Breeden is through to the finals of the women’s 200-meter butterfly.

Barely.

Breeden claimed the eighth and final spot in the finals, placing sixth in the second of two semifinal heats Wednesday morning (Tuesday night in the U.S.).

 A Water Cube capacity crowd of 17,000 cheered China’s Liu Zige to victory in the second of two heats, won in 2:06.25. Breeden came in sixth, but her time of 2:07.73 edged Great Britain’s Jemma Lowe, who placed third in the opening heat with a time of 2:07.87.

 “I was stunned,” Breeden said of her advancement. “I wanted to be in the top eight in the 100-meter butterfly, so when I didn’t make it I was a bit disappointed. I’m just going to see what I can do (in the finals).”

Breeden, a Stanford University junior out of Lexington’s Trinity Christian Academy, will be joined in the finals by Atlanta’s Kathleen Hersey, tied for fourth in Breeden’s heat and tied for fifth overall (2:06.96) Others advancing out of Breeden’s heat included world record-holder Jessicah Schipper of Australia (2:06.34), defending gold-medalist Otylia Jedrzejczak of Poland (2:06.78) and 2008 world leader Yuko Nakanishi of Japan, who tied with Hersey.

 China’s Jiao Liuyang won the opening heat in 2:06.42, followed by Aurore Mongel of France in 2:07.21.

Finals are set for Thursday morning (Friday night U.S.).

This entry was posted on August 13, 2008 at 1:09 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.