After swimming a 59.40 in the prelims of the women’s 100 backstroke, Katinka Hosszu of Hungary has decided to scratch the semi-finals of that event. She has a very heavy meet schedule and wants to focus on finals tonight. Last night, she won the semi-finals of the women’s 200 IM with a time of 2:08.59. Throughout the rest of the meet, she still has the 200 freestyle, 400 IM, 200 butterfly, and 200 backstroke. Those are her only swims, however, seeing that Hungary does not have any relays.
Hosszu is the first Hungarian to break 1:00 in the women’s 100 backstroke.
Taking her place will be Kimberly Buys of Belgium. Buys was 17th this morning with a time of 1:01.35.
The other scratch came from Emily Seebohm of Australia in the women’s 200 IM. She finished 6th in the semi-finals last night, but is most likely dropping the final to save energy for her 100 backstroke. She swam the backstroke this morning and finished fifth with a time of 1:00.02.
Siobhan-Marie O’Connor of Great Britain will be taking her place in the final of the women’s 200 IM. She was ninth in the semi-finals with a time of 2:11.33.
I think Hosszu might be a medal contender in the 200 back if she swims it. After this swim, we know her back is on and she is better in the 200s.
I predict:
Hosszu 2:06.9
Shiwen 2:07.0
It will be a tight race.
I hate to say “I told you” but I told you :). Katinka Hosszu will be on line 4 and Shiwen on line 5. Iron Lady leads at the last turn and she sees Shiwen all the time over the last 50 meter. Hosszu is a fighter. She can hold off Shiwen and claims a gold in 200IM tonight.
Yep, you called the scratch, now I hope you called the result as well 🙂
Always sad when one of the best swimmers has to pull out because of the schedule. Good decision, she’ll need to be completely fresh to hold off Ye.
Seebohm is scratching the last event of the night to save energy for an earlier race? That is strange.
Even if it would be after her main event, it would still be hanging on her mind and making it harder to relax.
Would the mere thought of another race coming up really have such a negative impact? I haven’t heard that before. Either way she should have had no problem being among the top 8 in the 100 back, she won silver at the Olympics.