Rebecca Adlington of Great Britain won the gold medal in the Women’s 800m Freestyle at the National Aquatics Center in Beijing and broke the oldest world record left in the swimming pool. Janet Evans of US set a world record of 8:16.22min in 1989. Since then, it was there on the wall to be broken. Adlington, who qualified fastest for the final, took the race out hard from the beginning. She was constantly under world record pace by approximately two seconds throughout her swim, counting by 2.22 seconds at the 400m.

 

By the 600m mark, she extended her lead on the world record by 2.52 seconds. Adlington maintained the pace in the final 200m, finally touching the wall in 8:14.10m to smash the Evans’ 19-year-old world mark by 2.12 seconds. Itlay’s Alessia Filippi, the third fastest qualifier into the final, grabbed the silver medal in a time of 8:20.23min. Lotte Friis of Denmark secured the bronze medal in a time of 8:23.03 min. Shibata Ai of Japan and Kate Ziegler of USA failed to qualify for the final.