Gators in the Olympics: Day 3 Results

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SPOILER ALERT! If you're waiting until NBC airs the tape-delayed results tonight at 8 p.m., read no further!


Tonight's swimming finals were both bitter and sweet for the U.S. team. Let's start with the good:

Former Gator swimmer Dana Vollmer, who transferred to Cal. Berkeley, won the women's 100 fly in a world-record time of 55.98 seconds. China's Ying Lu and Australia's Alician Coutts placed second and third, respectively, almost a full second behind Vollmer.

The "bad" news is that the American team had to settle for gold in the 4x100 Free Relay. Even worse, they got beat by the French. In a controversial decision, the coaching staff chose to put Ryan Lochte in the anchor position, while Matt Grevers, who posted the fastest split in the prelims, sat out. The Americans led the entire race until France's Yannick Angel caught up to and passed Lochte during the final fifty meters. The Americans' time was over two seconds slower than the world record they set in Beijing four years ago. Although Lochte lacks the experience of other swimmers, he alone is not to blame for the loss, however - his split time was only two tenths slower than Grevers', and the French won the event by almost half a second. Michael Phelps, who swam second in the relay, posted a very fast 47.15, perhaps a sign that his best races in these Games are yet to come.

Lochte also placed second in the semi-final of the 200 free, losing only to current world record-holder Paul Biederman of Germany.

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Splits:

[TABLE="width: 500"]
[TR]
[TD]

USA

Adrian 47.89
Phelps 47.15
Jones 47.60
Lochte 47.74[/TD]
[TD]France

Leveaux 48.13
Gilot 47.67
Lefert 47.39
Agnel 46.74[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Lefert made up a little time on Jones, but Agnel just turned on the jets. I'd compare Agnel's performance to Jason Lezak's in 2008 - just blisteringly fast.