B-Team keeps Phelps on track, Neethling and Oen stunned in heats

By Peter Auf der Heyde Aug 12, 2008, 12:43 GMT

Beijing - A United States reserve team on Tuesday kept alive Michael Phelps' attempt at winning an unprecedented eight gold medals at one Olympic Games when they comfortably qualified for Wednesday's 4x200m freestyle relay final.

Swimming without Phelps, the US won their heat in the Beijing Water Cube in an Olympic record 7 minutes 4.66 seconds, beating the 7:07.05 swum by Australia in 2000.

Great Britain (7:07.89) and Australia (7:08.41) followed in second and third place in the heat.

The three teams will be joined by South Africa, Italy, Russia, Canada and Japan in Wednesday's final, when Phelps will also swim the 200m butterfly. He needs just one more gold medal from eight swims to become the leading all-time Olympian with ten gold medals.

In the men's 100m freestyle, Australian Eamon Sullivan, who swam a world record 47.24 in Monday's 4x100m freestyle relay, in which the Australians finished third, posted the fastest time in 47.80 to advance to the semi-finals.

'I think it was a good time. I came in not wanting to swim too fast. It's good getting out there, without exerting myself. Emotionally, the world record took a lot out of me. I want to focus on the days ahead. I am happy with how things are going.

'The heats were really fast tonight. I wanted to do a fast time obviously, to make it to the semis.'

Other favourites through were Canadian Brent Hayden, France's Alain Bernard with the fourth-fastest time, Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband and Jazon Lezak, who anchored the US team in their dramatic victory against France in the 4x100m freestyle relay.

South African sprinter Ryk Neethling, who finished fourth over the distance in Athens and was a member of the victorious South African 4x100m freestyle relay four years ago, surprisingly crashed out in the heats.

'I worked for two years to get fit. And then I raced like this. It was very disappointing,' the devastated South African said.

In the women's 200m butterfly, local favourite Liu Zige had the near-capacity crowd in the 11,000-seater Water Cube excited when she was on course for Jessicah Schipper's world record time of 2:05.40 set in Canada two years ago. But the Chinese swimmer dropped some time at the end and finished in 2:06.46.

Her time was good enough to comfortably see her through to Wednesday's semi-finals with the fastest time.

Also through were Frenchwoman Aurore Mongel, Yuko Nakanishi from Japan, Liu's compatriot Jiao Liuyang, Poland's Otylia Jedzejczak and Schipper, who qualified with the 11th fastest time.

The Australian was not disappointed though.

'It's only a heat. Perhaps I did swim a little too slow. Maybe I didn't put as much effort in as I should have considering how the heats are going at the moment. I did not do myself any favours going out that slow.'

In the final event, the men's 200m breaststroke, Hungarian Daniel Gyurta bettered Kosuke Kitajima's Olympic record of 2:09.44, which the Japanese swimmer set in Athens, to 2:08.68 minutes. earlier, Paolo Bossini of Italy swam 2:08.98.

Gyurta topped the times into the semis from Bossini, another Italian Loris Facci, France's Hugues Duboscq, who won bronze in the men's 100m breaststroke on Monday, Canadian Mike Andrew Brown and Kitajima.

Norwegian Alexander Dale Oen, who earlier won silver in the men's 100m breaststroke, was eliminated in the heats.