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Adlington And Jackson Set The Pace

Jul 31, 2009  - Craig Lord

Rome, Day 6

Women's 800m freestyle

Brits Rebecca Adlington, double Olympic champion, and Joanne Jackson claimed the fast lanes into the final of the 800m freestyle with 8:20sec efforts in heats. After Jackson had set the pace for rivals with an 8:20.80 in the third heat of the 800m, Adlington, Olympic champion in the 400m and 800m freestyle in Beijing, followed up with a smooth 8:20.53 win in the last of five rounds. 

A few seconds behind the Brits came the three women who followed Adlington home at the Olympic Games last year: Camelia Potec, of Romania, Alessia Filippi, silver medal winner from Italy, and Lotte Friis, the Danish bronze medallist in Beijing.

Lane "0" of the first heat, at a championships using all 10 lanes in morning heats and only 1 to 8 in the final, was left empty. Federica Pellegrini, the Italian who confined Jackson, 22, and Adlington, 20, to the minor medals in the 400m last Sunday, withdrew from the race, the longer-distance race a pace too far for the Olympic and world 200m champion. 

The 8:25.65 in which Laure Manaudou (FRA) qualified for the final in 2007 would have placed 5th in Rome, but no other morning swims from Melbourne would have made the cut here. 

Rome 2009

  • Top 8 through: 8:20.53 -2:27.90
  • Inside 8:25: 4
  • Inside 8:30: 10

Melbourne 2007:

  • Top 8 through: 8:25.65 - 8:31.53
  • Inside 8:25: 0
  • Inside 8:30: 7