By John Lohn<\/p>\n
MONTREAL, Canada, July 28. LIKE the men\u2019s 200 breaststroke, the women\u2019s version of the event appears to be locked up. Australia\u2019s Leisel Jones, already the champion in the 100 breast, delivered the fastest qualifying time of the semifinals, as she covered the race in 2:25.30. Jones is a former world-record holder in the event and will chase Amanda Beard\u2019s global standard of 2:22.44 in the final.<\/p>\n
When Jones won the 100 breast earlier in the meet, it marked her first crown in Olympic or World Championship action. Now, it seems as if she will make it a double. Jones was followed in qualifying by Germany\u2019s Anne Poleska, who managed a swim of 2:26.22, slightly quicker than the 2:26.85 produced by Austria\u2019s Mirna Jukic (2:26.85).<\/p>\n
After barely making the semifinals, claiming the 16th spot in the preliminaries, the United States\u2019 Tara Kirk checked in with the fourth-fastest effort of the evening session, a 2:27.31 that has her positioned for a medal run. Kirk claimed bronze in the 100 breast. Meanwhile, Japan\u2019s Megumi Taneda was fifth in the semifinal round with a time of 2:27.70.<\/p>\n
Also advancing to the final were Poland\u2019s Katarzyna Dulian (2:27.96), South Africa\u2019s Suzaan Van Biljon (2:28.09) and the United States\u2019 Kristen Caverly (2:28.82). Beard, the Olympic champion, decided to bypass the U.S. Trials and has been capitalizing on her marketability through endorsement opportunities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By John Lohn MONTREAL, Canada, July 28. LIKE the men\u2019s 200 breaststroke, the women\u2019s version of the event appears to be locked up. Australia\u2019s Leisel Jones, already the champion in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":[10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n