The “Iron Lady” of Hungary,\u00a0Katinka Hosszu,<\/strong>\u00a0kickstarted her third Olympic run with a dominant showing in the women’s 400 IM. Hosszu jumped out to an immediate lead in the final heat of prelims and never looked back, quickly bypassing the World Record line to show the world that she means business. At the turn from the breaststroke to the freestyle, Hosszu was more than three seconds ahead of World Record pace but was unable to replicate 2012 champion\u00a0Ye Shiwen’s<\/strong>\u00a0freestyle split of 58.58.<\/p>\n Hosszu stopped the clock at a final 4:28.58, finishing just shy of Ye’s 4:28.43 World Record.<\/p>\n Picking up the second place seed for tonight’s final was\u00a0Mireia\u00a0Garcia Belmonte\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0of Spain from the same heat. Belmonte stopped the clock at a 4:32.75.<\/p>\n Maya DiRado<\/strong>\u00a0of the USA battled Great Britain’s\u00a0Aimee Wilmott<\/strong>\u00a0throughout heat three, edging her out in the final 25-meters. DiRado posted a 4:33.50 for the third place seed, while Wilmott’s time of 4:33.08 earned her fifth.<\/p>\n DiRado told the media, \u201cI felt really good. I\u2019ve never been that fast in prelims. I\u2019ve never been that fast in the first race of the meet…The energy back there in that USA Section is super high. Watching Chase start off with a best time in prelims was amazing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Grabbing the fourth place seed was teammate to Wilmott,\u00a0Hannah Miley<\/strong>\u00a0(4:33.74). This is Miley’s third Olympic Games pursuing a medal in the 400 IM, as she just missed the podium in 2012 with a fourth place showing.<\/p>\n 2012 Silver Medalist\u00a0Elizabeth Beisel\u00a0<\/strong>turned in a time of 4:34.38 to earn the sixth place seed, just ahead of Japan’s\u00a0Sakiko Shimizu<\/strong>\u00a0(4:34.66).<\/p>\n Beisel shared, \u201cI\u2019m just so happy to make the final. Hopefully I\u2019ll be faster tonight. This meet is just about having fun for me and I\u2019m having an absolute blast.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Canada’s\u00a0Emily Overholt\u00a0<\/strong>completes the top eight qualifiers with a 4:36.54.<\/p>\n Reigning Olympic Champion,\u00a0Ye Shiwen<\/strong>, will not have a chance to defend her gold medal after a 27th place finish in prelims.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Women’s 400 IM: The “Iron Lady” of Hungary,\u00a0Katinka Hosszu,\u00a0kickstarted her third Olympic run with a dominant showing in the women’s 400 IM. Hosszu jumped out to an immediate lead in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":216231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[50558],"class_list":["post-216229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-2016-rio-olympic-games"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n