Aug. 11, 2008
BEIJING, China - Former Auburn swimmer Kirsty Coventry put together one of the more impressive days of her career on Monday at the 2008 Olympics. The Zimbabwe native won her second silver medal of the Games and advanced to her third final with both events occurring within an hour of each other.
Coventry started off the night by finishing second in the 100-meter backstroke, earning the fifth medal of her Olympic career and her second silver this year. She also won the silver medal earlier in the week in the 400m IM.
Coventry held second place from start-to-finish in the race, going out in 28.92 seconds and coming back in 30.27 for a time of 59.19. The time is almost a half second short of the world record time of 58.77 she swam in the semifinal.
Not far behind Coventry was Huntsville, Ala., native Margaret Hoelzer. She finished .15 seconds behind Coventry, clocking a time of 59.34, to earn the bronze medal - her first career Olympic medal.
Hoelzer was in fifth place at the turn, going out in 29.02, but did not see much of a drop off on the second half of the race, clocking a 30.32 split to move up to third.
Fellow American Natalie Couglin won gold in the race, touching in with a time of 58.96.
The race was the first of two showdowns between former teammates Coventry and Hoelzer. Both consider the 200m backstroke the strongest of their events and will face off again beginning Thursday with preliminaries. Coventry set a new world record in the 200m back in February, only to see Hoelzer break the record at the U.S. Olympic Trials in July. The former Tigers enter the event as the top two seeds.
The medals are the fourth and fifth of the 2008 Olympics for current and former Auburn athletes. Coventry was first to win a medal as she took silver in the 400m IM. Fred Bousquet (France) and Matt Targett (Australia) followed up by winning silver and bronze, respectively, in the 400m freestyle relay Sunday night.
Less than a week into the Olympics, Auburn athletes are only one medal away from tying the Auburn record for medals in a single Olympiad. The record of six was set in 1984 and 2004. This year's total so far of five is tied for third with the 1996 Barcelona Olympics.
Currently, if Auburn were its own country, it would rank in a tie for seventh in medals won in 2008 with France. The two countries would rank behind the United States (19), China (14), Korea (9), Italy (8), Australia (7) and Russia (7). They would also currently rank ahead of countries such as Japan (4), Great Britain (3), Germany (2) and Spain (2).
The 100m back was just the first of two events on the night for Coventry as she returned to the pool an hour later to swim in the 200m individual medley semifinal. She qualified for her third final of the Games, posting an Olympic-record time in the 200m individual medley semifinal.
Coventry was in sixth place in her heat after the breaststroke, but shot up the standings to second after the backstroke - her strongest stroke. She overtook leader Stephanie Rice (Australia) during the butterfly and cruised to victory in the freestyle, winning with a time of 2:09.53 - more than a second faster than second-place Rice.
Coventry's splits in the backstroke (32.08), butterfly (38.04) and freestyle (30.24) were the fastest of all the swimmers in the event.
She will occupy lane four in Tuesday night's final as she searches for her first gold medal of the 2008 Games. Coventry has already won two medals this year, taking silver in the 400m IM and 100m back.
By qualifying for the 200m IM, Coventry puts herself in a good position to go four-for-four in advancing for finals as her remaining event is her strongest, the 200m backstroke - the event she won gold in at the 2004 Games in Athens.
This will be Coventry's second career Olympic finals appearance in the 200m IM as she won bronze in the event in 2004 with a time of 2:12.72.
Action in the 2008 Olympics continues at 5:48 a.m. CT, Tuesday with preliminaries in the men's 100m freestyle, women's 200m butterfly and the men's 200m breaststroke.
Former Tiger George Bovell gets things started as he swims at 5:48 a.m. CT in the sixth heat of the 100m free. With his seed time of 49.50 seconds, Bovell will swim out of lane eight in the heat.
Next up is Brazil's Cesar Cielo as he swims in lane three in the eighth heat, posting a seed time of 47.91, a time that ranks seventh in the world all-time. Cielo will swim next to Australia's Eamon Sullivan (lane four) who set a new world record in the 100m free on Sunday with a 47.24 leadoff split in the 400m freestyle relay.
Rounding out the event are Denmark's Jakob Andkjaer and Australia's Matt Targett in the ninth and final heat. Andkjaer holds a seed time of 49.06 and will swim in lane one while Targett has a seed time of 48.36 and will swim in lane six.
Incoming freshman Stephanie Horner (Canada) will be next on the starting blocks, competing in the 200m butterfly preliminary. She will be in the third heat, swimming out of lane eight, with a seed time of 2:10.70.
Former Tiger Eric Shanteau rounds out the Auburn contingent in the 200m breaststroke. Shanteau, who announced the week after Olympic Trials that he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, will swim in the sixth heat, occupying lane three. His seed time of 2:10.94 ranks ninth in the event in 2008.
For more information on the 2008 Olympics, check out the official Olympics Web site at http://en.beijing2008.cn/ or go to Auburn Olympics Central at http://auburntigers.cstv.com/ot/olympians.html.