China wins first gold at Beijing 2008 Olympic swim meet

August 14, 2008

The 200m butterfly race for women has turned out to be a glorious victory for the Chinese. They have gone one-two to win the first gold medal of the Beijing games in the swimming.

Australia’s Jessicah Schipper who is the world champion and world record holder in this event was taking on Liu Zige and Jiao Liuyang from China.

In the semifinal Schipper had faded over the closing stages of the race. I was wondering to myself was she saving herself for the final or would she repeat this in the final.

Unfortunately there was a repeat of the semi performance in the final. Schipper went out hard and was under world record pace. She lead at the 50m and 100m marks.  Liu made her challenge going to the 150m turn anad from there she pulled away from Schipper who was also overtaken by Jiao in the last 50m.

In the end it was Liu who powered to the wall to not only win China’s first swimming gold at the Beijing Olympics but she also set a new world record with a time of 2:04.18.  This was well under Schipper’s previous mark of 2:05.40.

This was a fantastic result for China.

Written by rob · Filed Under swimming beijing olympics 

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