Katie Hoff and Kate Ziegler fail to advance in 800-meter freestyle
OLYMPIC SWIMMING
The swimmers fall short of making the event's finals. For the first time, no American woman will compete in the 800 final.
BEIJING -- Outsized expectations, apparently, do not fit all.
Michael Phelps-type expectations, to be precise.
Katie Hoff, and Kate Ziegler to a lesser extent, found out the long hard way on Thursday night, both failing to qualify for the final of the 800-meter freestyle. Hoff looked utterly spent in her final race at the Olympics, wearily pulling herself out of the pool after the third heat of the event at the Water Cube.
Hoff may not have been last to touch -- having been third in her heat -- but she was last to clamber out after a startling 8-minute, 27.78-second performance. Her winning time at the U.S. Olympic trials a little more than a month ago in Omaha was 8:20.81.
Ziegler's swim two heats later was solid through the first 400 meters, but she fell back and finished in 8:26.98. Ziegler, the reigning world champion in this event, and Hoff finished 10th and 11th, respectively, and only the top eight advance.
It is the first time at the Olympics there will be no American woman in the 800 final.
"I don't think many people bet on that," Ziegler said.
Hoff arrived at these Olympics billed in some quarters as a potential female Phelps. She'll leave Beijing with a silver medal and two bronzes, the second bronze coming Thursday morning in the 800 freestyle relay.
Comparisons to Phelps, fueled by her showing at the World Championships last year in Melbourne, Australia, and the trials, were premature, if not a bit unfair.
"No one should be linked to Michael," said U.S. women's coach Jack Bauerle.
The owner of five gold medals here at the Olympics, Phelps was back in action again. after the morning free. He had the second-fastest time in the prelims of the 100 butterfly, in 50.87; Ian Crocker was 13th in 51.95. The fastest man was Milorad (Mike) Cavic of Serbia, who went 50.76.
Cavic, who was sixth in this event at worlds last year, went to Tustin High School, as well as Cal, and holds Serbian and U.S. passports, having been born in Anaheim.
In the 50 free prelims, Ben Wildman-Tobriner and Garrett Weber-Gale moved on to semifinals, as did Elizabeth Beisel and Margaret Hoelzer in the 200 backstroke.
Phelps was sympathetic about Hoff's struggles and said he was a little bit surprised by her showing in the 800. They were once teammates at North Baltimore Aquatic Club and will be again when Phelps and his coach Bob Bowman return there this fall.
