Olympic Times - Sports Daily

Italy’s Federica Pellegrini vented her frustration at failing to medal in her favorite race by breaking the world record in a different event during the heats at the Beijing Olympics on Monday.

Pellegrini was inconsolable after finishing fifth in the final of the women’s 400 meters freestyle in the morning but erased some of her angst by smashing the 200 world record in the evening to qualify for Tuesday’s semi-finals.

The finals will be held on Wednesday.

Her performance took the spotlight away, albeit briefly, from Michael Phelps, who eased off but still topped the qualifiers in the 200 butterfly.

Phelps won his second gold medal earlier when he helped the U.S. demolish the 4×100 freestyle relay world record and coasted through his heat in one minute 53.70 seconds, more than a full second outside his world record.

Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh, silver medalist behind Phelps in the 400 individual medley, qualified second fastest with Brazilian Kaio Almeida third.

“I just went out, I won’t say I cruised it. I just swam it and tried to get into the semi-final,” Phelps said.

Australia’s Alicia Coutts led the qualifiers in the women’s 200 individual medley after winning her heat in 2:11.55 ahead of Americans Katie Hoff and Natalie Coughlin, who were both taking it easy to save their energy for their hectic schedules.

Australia’s Stephanie Rice, gold medalist in the 400 individual medley, was also in cruise control to qualify sixth with Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry seventh after she broke Coughlin’s 100 backstroke record during the morning semi-finals.

Pellegrini unleashed a devastating sprint on her last lap to win her heat in 1:55.45 seconds, clipping 0.07 off the previous record set by France’s Laure Manaudou at last year’s world championships in Melbourne.

Slovenia’s European champion Sara Isakovic qualified second fastest with Britain’s Caitlin McClatchey third.

Pellegrini also holds the world record for the 400 freestyle but suffered a surprise loss behind British gold medalist Rebecca Adlington, whose winning time was more than a second outside Pellegrini’s heat time on Sunday.

“I didn’t want to break the world record in the heats,” Pellegrini said. “(But) It made amends for what happened this morning. It shows I’m still able to do it.”

from: reuters.com