Swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Women's 400 metre freestyle

Women's 400 metre freestyle
at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad
Competitors 42
Medalists
  Rebecca Adlington   Great Britain
  Katie Hoff   United States
  Joanne Jackson   Great Britain
«2004 2012»
Swimming events at the
2008 Summer Olympics
Freestyle
50 m   men   women
100 m men women
200 m men women
400 m men women
800 m women
1500 m men
Backstroke
100 m men women
200 m men women
Breaststroke
100 m men women
200 m men women
Butterfly
100 m men women
200 m men women
Individual medley
200 m men women
400 m men women
Freestyle relay
4×100 m men women
4×200 m men women
Medley relay
4×100 m men women
Marathon
10 km men women

The Women's 400 metre freestyle event at the 2008 Summer Olympics took place on 10–11 August at the Beijing National Aquatics Center. This swimming event used freestyle swimming, which means that the method of the stroke is not regulated (unlike backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly events). Nearly all swimmers use the front crawl or a variant of that stroke. Because an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of eight lengths of the pool.

Six heats were held, with most containing the maximum number of swimmers (eight). The heat in which a swimmer competed did not formally matter for advancement, as the swimmers with the top eight times from the entire field qualified for the finals; there, they all competed in a single final heat to earn final placements.

The qualifying norms were for the 2008 event were 4:11.26 (A norm) and 4:20.05 (B norm). NOCs with two or more swimmers meeting the A standard could enter any two such swimmers; otherwise, they could enter a single swimmer meeting the B standard.

Contents

Records

Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.

World record  Federica Pellegrini (ITA) 4:01.53 Eindhoven, Netherlands 24 March 2008 [1]
Olympic record  Janet Evans (USA) 4:03.85 Seoul, South Korea 22 September 1988

The following new world and Olympic records were set during this competition.

Date Event Name Nationality Time OR WR
August 10 Heat 5 Katie Hoff United States 4:03.71 OR
August 10 Heat 6 Federica Pellegrini Italy 4:02.19 OR

Heats

Rank Heat Lane Name Nationality Time Notes
1 6 4 Federica Pellegrini Italy 4:02.19 Q, OR
2 6 3 Rebecca Adlington Great Britain 4:02.24 Q, CR
3 5 4 Katie Hoff United States 4:03.71 Q, OR
4 5 4 Joanne Jackson Great Britain 4:03.80 Q
5 5 3 Bronte Barratt Australia 4:04.16 Q, OC
6 5 5 Coralie Balmy France 4:04.25 Q
7 4 6 Camelia Alina Potec Romania 4:04.55 Q
8 4 4 Laure Manaudou France 4:04.93 Q
9 4 5 Otylia Jędrzejczak Poland 4:05.50
10 4 3 Linda Mackenzie Australia 4:05.91
11 6 1 Stephanie Horner Canada 4:07.45
12 5 2 Wendy Trott South Africa 4:08.38 AF
13 5 7 Lotte Friis Denmark 4:08.47
14 6 5 Kate Ziegler United States 4:09.59
14 6 7 Flavia Rigamonti Switzerland 4:09.59
16 4 8 Joerdis Steinegger Austria 4:09.72
17 6 2 Melissa Corfe South Africa 4:10.54
18 5 1 Gabriella Fagundez Sweden 4:11.40
19 4 1 Savannah King Canada 4:11.49
20 3 3 Susana Escobar Mexico 4:11.99
21 3 5 Monique Ferreira Brazil 4:12.21
22 4 7 Tan Miao China 4:12.35
23 4 2 Erika Villaécija García Spain 4:14.25
24 3 6 Hoi Shun Stephanie Au Hong Kong 4:14.82
25 6 8 Jaana Ehmcke Germany 4:15.15
26 5 8 Li Mo China 4:15.50
27 3 2 Eleftheria Evgenia Efstathiou Greece 4:15.78
28 3 4 Daria Belyakina Russia 4:16.21
29 1 4 Boglárka Kapás Hungary 4:16.22
30 3 1 Lynette Lim Singapore 4:17.67
31 6 6 Ai Shibata Japan 4:17.96
32 2 2 Yanel Andreina Pinto Perez Venezuela 4:18.09
33 2 1 Nataliya Khudyakova Ukraine 4:18.34
34 3 7 Cecilia Elizabeth Biagioli Argentina 4:19.85
35 2 7 Eva Lehtonen Finland 4:20.07
36 2 3 Kristina Lennox-Silva Puerto Rico 4:20.17
37 2 6 Jieun Lee South Korea 4:21.53
38 2 5 Cai Lin Khoo Malaysia 4:23.37
39 2 4 Golda Marcus El Salvador 4:23.50
40 3 8 Chin-Kuei Yang Chinese Taipei 4:24.78
41 1 3 Shrone Austin Seychelles 4:35.86
42 1 5 Natthanan Junkrajang Thailand DNS

Final

Rebecca Adlington earned Great Britain's first female swimming gold medal for 48 years as she came from behind to defeat pre-race favourite Katie Hoff.

Laure Manaudou led the first 150m, but was closed down on the fourth length, where Hoff took the lead from Coralie Balmy and Federica Pellegrini, although the whole field were within striking distance. Hoff lead through 200m in 1:59.60 and 300m (3:01:91) taking a body-length lead into the last 100m. Joanne Jackson moved into second place on the penultimate length, but Adlington stormed through from fourth to first inside the last 25m, taking the lead inside the last 5m from Hoff, with Jackson holding on for the bronze medal.

Rank Lane Name Nationality Time Notes
5 Rebecca Adlington Great Britain 4:03.22
3 Katie Hoff United States 4:03.29
6 Joanne Jackson Great Britain 4:03.52
4 7 Coralie Balmy France 4:03.60
5 4 Federica Pellegrini Italy 4:04.56
6 1 Camelia Alina Potec Romania 4:04.66
7 2 Bronte Barratt Australia 4:05.05
8 8 Laure Manaudou France 4:11.26

New Records

Date Round Athlete Nationality Record Type
August 10, 2008 Heat 5 Katie Hoff United States 4:03.71 Olympic Record
August 10, 2008 Heat 5 Bronte Barratt Australia 4:04.16 Oceania Record
August 10, 2008 Heat 5 Wendy Trott South Africa 4:08.38 African Record
August 10, 2008 Heat 6 Federica Pellegrini Italy 4:02.19 Olympic Record
August 10, 2008 Heat 6 Rebecca Adlington Great Britain 4:02.24 Commonwealth Record

References

  1. ^ "Veldhuis and Pellegrini set world records at Euro swimming championships". International Herald Tribune. 2008-03-24. http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/24/sports/swimming24.php. Retrieved 2008-08-06.