Olympics: 100m butterfly semis

Well, first a brief recap of other action. Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh start off NBC's live prime time coverage as the defending gold medalists in the women's beach volleyball (I ought to reference my previous blog regarding my thoughts as to why NBC is airing beach volleyball on primetime). The Americans easily won in two sets.

Also, Michael Phelps kicked off the evening in the men's 400m IM against good friend Ryan Lochte. Phelps was dominant in what was said to possibly be his toughest individual event, winning the gold medal and breaking his own world record in the process. Lochte, though he was even with Phelps at the beginning of the breastroke, Phelps' weakest stroke, he fell to third and the bronze medal.

And finally, regarding Elaine Breeden. While being seeded sixth going into the semifinals, she was about a half second off her prelim time, and ended up tying for sixth in her heat. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be enough to make it to the finals. Fellow American Christine Magnuson managed to break the American record, and will have a solid shot at a medal tomorrow night in the finals.

Elaine's next race will be on Tuesday night, Beijing time in the prelims of the 200 fly.

Olympics: 100m butterfly prelims

Can I just say right now how much I hate NBC? They advertise that they're broadcasting thousands of hours of the Olympics online. Which is great, right? Except that doesn't include swimming, because they'll show the prelims delayed this afternoon. At least they'll show them live tonight. However, if you want to see badminton, cycling, or equestrian, you're all set.

Thus, I dutifully got up this morning to see Elaine's swim online at about 7am this morning. No live feed. The best I got was the results of the heats. She managed to place 6th in the field of 49 with a time of 56:06, easily getting her to the semifinals. Jessicah Schipper of Australia won the heat with a time that is almost a half second faster than Elaine's. She's definitely the favorite to win gold in Beijing in this event.

She'll swim again tonight (well, in Beijing it'll be tomorrow morning), at a little after 10pm Eastern time. The swimming event starts at 10, and Michael Phelps will start his quest for 8 gold medals first, with the finals of the 400m IM (which he set an Olympic record in this morning). Elaine will probably swim in the second race of the evening, in heat 1 of the semifinals in lane 3.

Edit: Elaine will indeed be in heat 1 in lane 3, right next to fellow American Christine Magnuson in lane 4. Expect it to be at about 10:10 EDT.