Adam Peaty (GBR) retained his Olympic crown in the 100m breast to maintain his 7-year unbeaten run. His victory was never in danger, while Canada’s Maggie MacNeil came from behind to win it by 0.05sec in the women’s 100m fly. The US men were superior in the 4x100m free relay, their winning gap was 1.14sec, more than convincing in this event.
Men’s 100m breast
A race where all three eventual
medallists were a happy man. Adam Peatty retained his title with a powerful
swim, clocked 57.37, the 5th fastest time in his career – which also means: the
5th best effort ever in this event –, not leaving any room for doubt that he is
the ruler of this distance where he is unbeaten since 2014 (grabbed four European
titles, three world titles and two Olympic golds in a row).
Dutchman Arno Kamminga, on the rise
since the autumn of 2019, proved his status as the new challenger of the king,
though this time he could not re-enter to the 57sec area (this spring he
managed to follow Peaty to that territory, only the second one in history).
Still, he was overjoyed with his silver just as junior world champion Niccolo
Martinenghi (ITA) was with his well-deserved bronze.
Women’s 100m fly
World champion Maggie MacNeil nailed
it to win her first Olympic title after an amazing race. The Canadian led
perhaps only over the last couple of centimetres, still fair enough to finish
first in any swimming races. She turned 7th while top qualifier Yufei Zhang
(CHN) went ahead and world rank leader Torri Huske (USA) was a close second.
Huske seemed to catch the wave in the second lap and Emma McKeon (AUS) also
geared up – still, it was MacNeil who stormed from behind and was able to hit a
gear the others could not and at the wall he out-touched Zhang by 0.05sec to
set a new American record (55.59). McKeon, bettering the Oceanian record
(55.72), did the same with Huske for the bronze, by 0.01sec – the top four hit
the wall within 0.14sec… Title-holder Sarah Sjostrom lagged behind right after
the start and could not come back to have a word in this race – after her
horrific fall and the ensuing surgery in the winter, it is still amazing that
the Swede was able to get back into shape to reach the final at least (she
finished 7th).
"It's crazy. I'm trying to
process what happened yesterday with the relay, because that was so incredible.
And I still don't think I've realised the whole world champion thing, so this
will take a while to get used to” MacNeil said.
She also had this to say on the race:
"I could hardly see anyone on the far side of the pool, which I think
helped me a lot, because I was able to just focus on my own race. I just put my
head down and tried to get to the wall as fast as possible. I'm really glad it
all came together” she said and also explained her delayed joy at the wall.
"I like to check the scoreboard pretty quickly. But it's hard just because
I don't have contacts (contact lenses). It does take me a minute to read the
scoreboard, so I was just trying to squint and see where I came.”
FINA
Michael Phelps Teaches Swimming
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