ATHENS, Greece. August 17. Romanian Camelia Potec took out the wide-open 200 freestyle from lane one in a relatively slow 1:58.03. Not for the first time during this meet that lane one has proven lucky – the golden lane perhaps.
The race was taken out fast by American teen Dana Vollmer and German world record-holder Franzi van Almsick, both flipped at the fifty under 28-seconds with Franzi edging to the front at the 100-meters, Vollmer was still on her shoulder. At the 150-meter mark both early leaders dropped off the pace, it was the Italian 16-year-old Federica Pellegrini that moved to the front with French 25-year-old Soleene Figues were 1-2 racing each other in the middle lanes.
Camelia Potec was closing fast and slipped to the front as the three went under the flags. Potec got to the wall first for the gold just 0.19 of a second in front of Pellegrini who took the silver in 1:58.22, Figues was another 0.23 of a second in arrears grabbed the bronze in 1:58.45.
For the 22-year-old Potec, who had finsihed 7th in this event in Sydney it was a great relief to finally get her hands on a medal. She said in her press conference that she had swuma personal best in the 400 freestyle and finished out of the medals. :It was hard for me to recover after such a fast swim for no result. I had to recover myself both my mind and body for this race," she explained. Tonight I did not swim my fastest but I won a gold medal".
German world record-holder, Franzi van Almsick was leading at the 100-meters by tired to finish fifth and her hopes for that illusive gold medal after four Olympics rests with her German 800 relay team. The German women have been off there game again here after looking medal chances in several events.
Dana Vollmer swam a PR 1:58.98 in finishing sixth- 7th all-time American performer.