Women's 800 metre freestyle at the Games of the XXXI Olympiad | |||||||||||||
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Venue | Olympic Aquatics Stadium | ||||||||||||
Dates | 11 August 2016 (heats) 12 August 2016 (final) | ||||||||||||
Competitors | 30 from 21 nations | ||||||||||||
Winning time | 8:04.79 WR | ||||||||||||
Medalists | |||||||||||||
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Swimming at the 2016 Summer Olympics | ||
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Qualification | ||
Freestyle | ||
50 m | men | women |
100 m | men | women |
200 m | men | women |
400 m | men | women |
800 m | women | |
1500 m | men | |
Backstroke | ||
100 m | men | women |
200 m | men | women |
Breaststroke | ||
100 m | men | women |
200 m | men | women |
Butterfly | ||
100 m | men | women |
200 m | men | women |
Individual medley | ||
200 m | men | women |
400 m | men | women |
Freestyle relay | ||
4 × 100 m | men | women |
4 × 200 m | men | women |
Medley relay | ||
4 × 100 m | men | women |
Marathon | ||
10 km | men | women |
The women's 800 metre freestyle event at the 2016 Summer Olympics took place between 11 and 12 August at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium. [1]
U.S. swimmer Katie Ledecky set a new world record to defend her Olympic title in this event and to successfully complete a distance freestyle treble at a single edition for the first time, since Debbie Meyer did so in 1968. [2] Dominating the race from the start, Ledecky quickly dropped two seconds under a world-record pace, as she pulled further away from the field to overturn her own existing standard with a gold-medal time in 8:04.79. [3] [4] Separated from the leader by 11.38 seconds, Great Britain's Jazmin Carlin edged out the Hungarian challenger Boglárka Kapás at the final lap for her second silver of the meet in 8:16.17. [5] [6] Meanwhile, Kapás faded down the stretch to earn a bronze in 8:16.37, two tenths of a second short of Carlin's time. [7] [8]
London 2012 runner-up Mireia Belmonte slipped off the podium to fourth in a Spanish record of 8:18.55. Outside the 8:20 club, Australia's Jessica Ashwood (8:20.32) and Ledecky's teammate Leah Smith (8:20.95), bronze medalist in the 400 m freestyle, picked up the fifth and sixth spots respectively, finishing 63-hundredths of a second apart from each other. Denmark's Lotte Friis (8:24.50) and Germany's Sarah Köhler (8:27.75) rounded out the championship field. [8]
Ledecky also overturned the existing Olympic record in 8:12.86 to top the field of twenty-seven swimmers in the prelims, taking 1.24 seconds off the standard set by Great Britain's Rebecca Adlington in a since-banned high-tech bodysuit in Beijing eight years earlier. [9] [10]
Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.
World record | Katie Ledecky (USA) | 8:06.68 | Austin, United States | 17 January 2016 | [11] |
Olympic record | Rebecca Adlington (GBR) | 8:14.10 | Beijing, China | 16 August 2008 | [12] [13] |
The following records were broken during the competition:
Date | Event | Name | Nationality | Time | Record |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
11 August | Heat 4 | Katie Ledecky | United States | 8:12.86 | OR |
12 August | Final | Katie Ledecky | United States | 8:04.79 | WR , OR |
The competition consisted of two rounds: heats and a final. The swimmers with the best 8 times in the heats advanced to the final. Swim-offs were used as necessary to break ties for advancement to the next round. [1]
Rank | Lane | Name | Nationality | Time | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
4 | Katie Ledecky | United States | 8:04.79 | WR | |
3 | Jazmin Carlin | Great Britain | 8:16.17 | ||
5 | Boglárka Kapás | Hungary | 8:16.37 | NR | |
4 | 8 | Mireia Belmonte | Spain | 8:18.55 | NR |
5 | 7 | Jessica Ashwood | Australia | 8:20.32 | |
6 | 6 | Leah Smith | United States | 8:20.95 | |
7 | 2 | Lotte Friis | Denmark | 8:24.50 | |
8 | 1 | Sarah Köhler | Germany | 8:27.75 |
Deborah Elizabeth Meyer, also known by her married name Deborah Weber, is an American former competition swimmer, a three-time Olympic champion, and a former world record-holder in four events. Meyer won the 200-, 400-, and 800-meter freestyle swimming races in the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. While she was still a 16-year-old student at Rio Americano High School in Sacramento, California, she became the first swimmer to win three individual gold medals in one Olympics, winning the 200-, 400-, and 800-meter freestyle swimming races. Katie Ledecky is the only other female swimmer to have done the same, in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio.
Kate Marie Ziegler is an American competition swimmer who specializes in freestyle and long-distance events. Ziegler has won a total of fifteen medals in major international competition, including eight golds, five silvers, and two bronzes spanning the World Aquatics and the Pan Pacific Championships. She was a member of the 2012 United States Olympic team, and competed in the 800-meter freestyle event at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Mireia Belmonte García is a Spanish Olympic, world, and European champion swimmer. She is the world record holder in the short course 200 metre butterfly and 400 metre individual medley. Formerly, she held the world record in the short course 400 metre freestyle, 800 metre freestyle, and 1500 metre freestyle. She was the first Spanish woman to win a gold medal in swimming at an Olympic Games and is widely considered to be the greatest Spanish swimmer of all time.
Rebecca Adlington is an English former competitive swimmer who specialised in freestyle events in international competition. She won two gold medals at the 2008 Summer Olympics in the 400-metre freestyle and 800-metre freestyle, breaking the 19-year-old world record of Janet Evans in the 800-metre final. Adlington was Britain's first Olympic swimming champion since 1988, and the first British swimmer to win two Olympic gold medals since 1908. After winning her first World Championship gold over 800 metres in 2011, along with silver in the 400 metres at the same meet, she won bronze medals in both the women's 400-metre and 800-metre freestyle events in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Adlington is one of the few people to have won Olympic Games, World Championships, continental championships and Commonwealth Games gold medals, although she did not win a set in any one event.
The first world record in the women's 800 metres freestyle in long course (50 metres) swimming was recognised by the International Swimming Federation (FINA) in 1931. The women's 880 yard freestyle had been a FINA-recognized world record event since 1919. However, in 1931 FINA decreed that only performances from 1931 onward would be eligible for world record consideration in the 800 metres freestyle. Thus Helene Madison's 1930 world record of 11:41.2 in the 880 yard freestyle was not considered a world record in the 800 metres freestyle even though it was over a longer distance and substantially faster than Yvonne Godard's 1931 world record of 12:18.8 in the 800 metres freestyle. In 1933, Lenore Kight swam the 880 yard freestyle in 11:44.0, which FINA recognised as a world record in the 800 metres freestyle but not in the 880 yard freestyle. This irregularity was finally resolved in 1935, when Kight's 11:34.4 in the 880 yard freestyle broke the records for both the 880 yard freestyle and the 800 metres freestyle. Because of this situation, the world records for the 880 yard freestyle for women from 1919 to 1930 are included below.
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Jazmin Roxy "Jazz" Carlin is a former British competitive swimmer, who previously represented Wales and the Great Britain swimming team. She competed primarily in endurance freestyle events, and was based at the University of Bath. She won gold for Wales at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, double gold for Great Britain in the 400 metres and 800 metres freestyle at both the 2014 European Championships and the 2015 European Championships before winning two silver medals for Great Britain in the same events behind Katie Ledecky at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
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