Swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Women's 4 × 100 metre freestyle relay
| Women's 4×100 metre freestyle relay at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad
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| Venue | Beijing National Aquatics Center | |||||||||
| Date | August 9, 2008 (heats) August 10, 2008 (final) |
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| Competitors | 67 from 16 nations | |||||||||
| Winning time | 3:33.76 OR | |||||||||
| Medalists | ||||||||||
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 Netherlands (NED)Inge Dekker, Ranomi Kromowidjojo, Femke Heemskerk, Marleen Veldhuis, Hinkelien Schreuder*, Manon van Rooijen* |
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 United States (USA)Natalie Coughlin, Lacey Nymeyer, Kara Lynn Joyce, Dara Torres, Emily Silver*, Julia Smit* |
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*Indicates the swimmer only competed in the preliminary heats. |
Australia (AUS)
Cate Campbell, Alice Mills, Melanie Schlanger, Lisbeth Trickett, Shayne Reese*
The women's 4 × 100 metre freestyle relay event at the 2008 Olympic Games took place on 9–10 August at the Beijing National Aquatics Center in Beijing, China.
The Dutch women reinforced their claim to become the strongest team in the world with a magnificent triumph over the Aussies and the Americans in the event. Pulling nearly a worst-to-first effort from a seventh-place turn by Inge Dekker (54.37), Ranomi Kromowidjojo (53.39) and Femke Heemskerk (53.42) moved the team further into the top spot, until they handed Marleen Veldhuis the anchor duties on the final exchange to cruise the field down the stretch in 52.58 and to snatch the freestyle relay title with an Olympic record of 3:33.76.
Competing in her fifth Olympics since 1984, U.S. legend Dara Torres anchored her team with a remarkable split of 52.44, the second-fastest of all time, to deliver the foursome of Natalie Coughlin (54.00), Lacey Nymeyer (53.91), and Kara Lynn Joyce (53.98) a silver medal in a new American record of 3:34.33. Meanwhile, Australia's Cate Campbell (54.43), Alice Mills (54.43), Melanie Schlanger (53.85), and Lisbeth Trickett (52.34) powered home with a bronze in an Oceanian record of 3:35.05, holding off the fast-pacing Chinese squad of Zhu Yingwen (54.12), Tang Yi (54.19), Xu Yanwei (54.64), and Pang Jiaying (52.69) by 59-hundredths of a second, a superb Asian standard of 3:35.64.
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