Mark Maloney on Kentucky sports

BEIJING – Kosuke Kitajima of Japan claimed the gold medal in the men’s 200-meter breaststroke Thursday morning, touching the Water Cube pad in 2 minutes, 7.64 seconds.

The mark is just off his world record of 2:07.51, but broke the Olympic record of 2:08.61 that he set a day earlier in the semifinals.

Brenton Rickard of Australia took the silver medal in 2:08.88, with the bronze going to Hugues Duboscq of France in 2:08.94.

Scott Spann of the U.S. placed sixth in 2:09.76.

Natalie Coughlin of Team USA led qualifiers for finals of the women’s 100-meter freestyle in 53.70. Marleen Veldhuis of the Netherlands was second-fastest at 53.81. Lacy Nymeyer finished 12th overall, eliminated in 54.74.

This entry was posted on August 13, 2008 at 10:30 pm and is filed under 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.