2016 RIO OLYMPIC GAMES

The third night of swimming finals will have four events with medals on the line, along with three rounds of semi-finals.

One of the most talked about events in the lead-up to these Olympics has been the men’s 100 back, which features Americans Ryan Murphy and David Plummer and Australian Mitch Larkin. All three have been very fast over the last 12 months and the world record has been mentioned again and again, but it has yet to go down.

None of them have been very close so far in Rio, so tonight we’ll find out just how much they’ve been holding back in the prelims and semis. The three of them will swim in lanes 3, 4 and 5 tonight. Japan’s Ryosuke Irie, swimming in lane 1, is the only member of the final who has ever won an Olympic medal, so it will be interesting to see how these three respond to swimming the biggest race of their career.

An event that has slowly built momentum in terms of hype and drama is the women’s 100 breast, which may just outweigh the men’s 100 back in terms of the event of the night. It all began when 2012 Olympic champ Ruta Meilutyte called out FINA on Twitter when Russian Yuliya Efimova was initially cleared to swim in Rio despite a doping violation. Efimova’s case went back-and-forth, and she was officially allowed to compete just the night before the 100 breast.

After winning her semi-final, Efimova shook her index finger signalling ‘number one’. American Lilly King, seeing this, wasn’t too impressed and mocked her finger wag. After the race King said “you wave your finger number one and you’ve been caught for drug cheating…I’m not a fan”, adding fuel to the already highly anticipated race.

King put up the best time in the semis of 1:05.70 and will swim in lane 4, with Efimova in lane 5 and Meilutyte in lane 6. It’s going to be very interesting to see the reaction of the fans and athletes if Efimova does win a medal tonight, and based off her semi time, there’s a good chance she will.

Other finals tonight will be the men’s 200 free and the women’s 100 back, both looking pretty wide open as of now.

Australian Emily Seebohm came into these Games as the favorite but hasn’t appeared on form, posting just the 7th fastest time in the semi-finals giving her lane 1 in the final tonight. Seeds 1 through 6 are all separated by just three tenths of a second, and the other two seeds are Seebohm (58.26 best time) and Olivia Smoliga, who went 59.02 at US Trials. Smoliga’s American teammate Kathleen Baker is the top seed after a 58.84 last night.

The men’s 200 free is truly wide open, with Sun Yang the top seed at 1:44.63. Sun has never won a major international title in this event, but another 1:44-mid might get the job done tonight. Seeds 2 through 7 are separated by less than four tenths, and the 8th seed, James Guy, was the World Champion last year. This one will be very close.

We’ll also see semi-finals in the women’s 200 free, women’s 200 IM and men’s 200 fly.

Katie Ledecky will be back in action in semi-final 2 of the 200 free swimming alongside fellow gold medalist Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden.

The men’s 200 fly will feature the first race of the Games between rivals Michael Phelps and Chad Le Clos, who will swim in lanes 3 and 5 in semi-final 2. Hungarians Tamas Kenderesi and Laszlo Cseh posted the two fastest swims of the morning, and will have lane 4 in each semi-final.

In the final event we’ll see Katinka Hosszu, who is also in the 100 back final, compete in the 200 IM after setting an Olympic record this morning in 2:07.45. After looking so controlled this morning, it’s conceivable her world record of 2:06.12 could go down. But with the 100 back beforehand, she’ll likely do what she has to do to get the middle lane for tomorrow night and put everything into the final.