Europe

Olympics: Great Britain Ends Medal Drought in 800 Free Relay; Dressel-less Americans Fail to Medal Five teams entered the 800 freestyle relay at the 1908 Olympics at London’s White City Stadium. Four made the final (tough luck, Sweden). One wouldn’t make the podium with a time – and a name, Australa...

Olympics: Double Delight for Yui Ohashi with 200 IM Gold Olympic races are supposed to be close. But even by Olympic standards, the 1.4 seconds separating the eight finalists in the women’s 200 individual medley Wednesday morning was outstandingly tight. The race they delivered didn’t disappoint. In...

Olympics: Izaac Stubblety-Cook, Arno Kamminga Tie as Top Seeds in 200 Breast It was almost a preliminaries of the men’s 200 breaststroke that was fit to be tied. The final two heats of the event each ended in ties, though the final one was broken by a disqualification. It leaves Izaac Stubblety-Cook...

Olympics: Kate Douglass First, Katinka Hosszu Second in 200 IM Prelims If the women’s 400 individual medley at the Tokyo Olympics taught us anything about Katinka Hosszu, it’s that the Iron Lady is not to be counted out yet. At 32, she may not be the world-beater she used to be, the all-conquering p...

Olympics: Kristof Milak Cruises to Top Seed in 200 Butterfly It was 21 years ago that a gawky 15-year-old kid from Baltimore first stepped onto the global stage in the men’s 200 butterfly. In the five Games since that fateful day in Sydney, Michael Phelps never finished lower than fifth in his signa...

Olympics: Adam Peaty Defends 100 Breaststroke Gold; Arno Kamminga Gets Silver One entered the Olympics with 18 of the fastest times in the history and a gold medal. One entered without a major international final to his name in his mid-20s. For 75 meters, they were next to each other, but in the end...

Adam Peaty, Arno Kamminga Set for Two-Man Duel in Olympic 100 Breast Final The Olympic final in the men’s 100 breaststroke might feel, for stretches Monday morning in Tokyo, like a two-man match race. There will be six swimmers in the water at the Tokyo Aquatic Centre whose goal, as much as getting ...

When Sarah Sjostrom fractured her elbow in February, she wondered for a moment if her chance at the Tokyo Olympics was gone. Facing surgery, an expected three-month rehab and an injury like she’d never experienced in her stellar career, doubt naturally crept in. “I never had a hard injury like this ...

Olympics: Adam Peaty, Arno Kamminga Exert Dominance in 100 breast The easy narrative in the men’s 100 breast is that everyone is racing for silver. Arno Kamminga might suggest that everyone is racing for bronze. No one really suggested otherwise Saturday night. Adam Peaty and Kamminga dominated the ...

Molly Renshaw half expected to face Yulia Efimova in the 200 breaststroke in Tokyo although a quick glance at the entry lists soon confirmed the Russian will only compete in the shorter race. “Who knows?” said Renshaw a few short weeks back: “She seems to wrangle her way around things so I’m not hol...

European Men’s Olympic Preview: Kristof Milak Heads to Tokyo as Established Star The first time the name Kristof Milak captured the world’s attention was in July 2017, when he won the European Junior Championships in the 200 butterfly in 1:53.73. But a few weeks later, Milak would not represent Hung...

European 400 individual medley champion Ilya Borodin is out of the Tokyo Olympics following a positive test for COVID. The result removes one of the sport's young guns from the Games, as Borodin was expected to contend for a medal in the longer of the medley events. The 400 IM is the first event on ...

Tokyo Storylines, European Women: Federica Pellegrini, Sarah Sjostrom, Katinka Hosszu And More La Divina. La Fede. The Lioness of Verona. Seventeen years after winning 200 free silver on her Olympic debut at Athens 2004, Federica Pellegrini  will take to the blocks for her final international meet o...

Arno Kamminga didn’t watch the Rio Olympics but instead packed his bags and went on holiday. Fast-forward five years and the Netherlands swimmer approaches Tokyo as the second-fastest man in history over 100 breaststroke - one of just two through the 58-second barrier - and the sixth swiftest over 2...

Six Olympic swimmers from Poland have been sent home from the Olympic Games in Tokyo because of an administrative error. The Polish Swimming Federation was forced to cut its team of 23 members to 17 after mistakenly sending too many athletes to Japan following a misunderstanding of the FINA qualifyi...

For months speculation has swirled about whether the delayed Tokyo Olympics will go ahead. Opinions have been polarised and loud while polls declared differing rates of opposition to the Games among residents of the Japanese capital. Among all the noise the athletes have continued to prepare, the cu...

Adam Peaty: With 56.1 In His Sights, Inspiring Son George And Invoking The Warrior Spirit Adam Peaty’s domination of the 100 breaststroke has been absolute since his senior international debut at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Unbeaten over two lengths of the pool since he won gold at the Tol...

Alan Bircher, the former coach of world, European and Commonwealth medallist Freya Anderson, has been suspended by Swim England following a 12-month investigation into allegations of a toxic culture at Ellesmere College. Bircher, a British open water international in his own swimming days who won wo...

"For me the Olympics is the start of what’s coming next, a bit of hope. I’ve said that the NHS has taken care of health and I feel like it’s sport’s job to take care of hope. "I’ve never gone to an Olympic Games with a feeling more of our moral purpose. "We’ve been on an oil tanker in a frozen river...

Freya Anderson On Sticking Out Like A Sore Thumb, Self-Doubt And Heemskerk Inspiration All Freya Anderson wanted when she was growing up was to fit in. She was already pushing six feet tall by the time she entered her early teens and with red hair, the young girl from Birkenhead, in northwest Englan...