Rice’s golden moment in Beijing Olympic swimming

Australian Olympic swim team member in Beijing, Stephanie Rice has won Australia’s first gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Her win came in the women’s 400m individual medley. She topped this off by winning in a new world record time of 4.29.45. The previous world record was 4:31.12 held by Katie Hoff.

Her likely opponent for the gold medal Katie Hoff of the USA was never close to Rice and it was Kirsty Coventry from Zimbabwe who pushed the Australian.

Coventry in the lead after 200m was 3.83 ahead of the world record split with Rice close behind. As the race moved into the breaststroke phase Rice took the lead and was 2.66 ahead of world record pace at 250m. As Rice went into the freestyle she was 1.40 ahead of world record pace, 0.74 with 50m to go and then she broke the world record to win the 400m individual medley ahead of Coventry and Hoff third.

It was a great win for the Australian glamour girl of swimming. Congratulations to Stephanie. Coventry’s time was 4:29.89 also inside of the old world record with Hoff swimming 4:31.71 which was slower than her world record.

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