Swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Women's 400 metre freestyle
| Women's 400 metre freestyle at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad
|
|||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Venue | Beijing National Aquatics Center | ||||||||||||
| Date | August 10, 2008 (heats) August 11, 2008 (final) |
||||||||||||
| Competitors | 42 from 35 nations | ||||||||||||
| Winning time | 4:03.22 | ||||||||||||
| Medalists | |||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
|
Rebecca Adlington |
 Great Britain
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Katie Hoff |
 United States
|
|
|
Joanne Jackson |
Great Britain
|
The women's 400 metre freestyle event at the 2008 Olympic Games took place on 10–11 August at the Beijing National Aquatics Center in Beijing, China.
Rebecca Adlington became Great Britain's first female gold medalist in swimming in 48 years. She posted an outside-record time of 4:03.22 to hold off U.S. swimmer Katie Hoff in the final 50 metres with a 1.46-second deficit. Hoff added a silver to her hardware from the 400 m individual medley just a day earlier, in 4:03.29. Adlington's teammate Joanne Jackson earned a bronze in 4:03.52, handing an entire medal haul for Team GB in the pool.
France's Coralie Balmy narrowly missed the podium by eight hundredths of a second (0.08), finishing in fourth place at 4:03.60. Italy's world record holder and top favorite Federica Pellegrini earned a fifth spot in a time of 4:04.56, holding off Romania's Camelia Potec to sixth by 0.10 of a second (4:04.66). Australia's Bronte Barratt (4:05.05) and defending Olympic champion Laure Manaudou (4:11.26).
Notable swimmers missed out the top 8 final, featuring Poland's Otylia Jędrzejczak, silver medalist in Athens four years earlier, Hoff's teammate Kate Ziegler, and South Africa's Wendy Trott, who broke a new African record (4:08.38) in the heats.
...
Wikipedia