Mens 200 Breast

Kitajima is without doubt the man to beat in his quest for the 100/200 double. He made the call before the Games that he would not return to Japan without the two gold medals, let’s hope there are no samurai swords around if the unthinkable does happen!

At 1.1, some of you might like to load up on the multis, but it’s not a price for me. In the w/o Kitajima markets, Gyurta at 6.0 with Ladbrokes is tempting, particularly each-way, but those markets are usually very weak, so no point me recommending it when the price will change after two bets. Keep an eye out if other firms offer similar markets.

No bet

Womens 200 Fly (12:42 pm Thursday)

An event where Jessicah Schipper supposedly had a monopoly on it but I’m not so sure now. Her PB is 0.85 better than anyone else in the field, but that was set two years ago. She hasn’t been that close to it for a while, and her semis time was her best for ages, but she still let the Chinese girl beat her. Schipper also had a significant advantage in the reaction time at the start, which is not guaranteed to happen again. Taking it easy in the semis is not usually her style. For this reason I’m siding with Zige Liu. The Chinese will be hell-bent on winning a gold in the pool and this might be there best chance. I reckon there might just be something left in the tank with her.

2pts Zige Liu, 3.50 general

Mens 100m Free

The blue riband event of the swimming and we’ve already seen the world record smashed three times, plus the super-human relay performance of Lezak in the relay. Just how a swimmer can clock 46.06 in the closing leg and then scrape into the final with a 47.98 is beyond me. Reminds me of the bloke with super-stretchy arms in the Fantastic Four. Amazing things can happen in relays. Before this year, only two men had broken 48 seconds. Now 48 flat gets lane one in the final and the gold medallists from last year in Melbourne (Hayden and Magnini dead-heated) haven’t even qualified, unbelievable.

I would love to see the veteran van den Hoogenband get up and win this, but I think he has half a second to find. This is a two-horse race. Bernard looks pissed off after losing the relay final and clocked a new world mark in his semi, which barely lasted five minutes. He’s going to have to go sub-47 I think to beat Sullivan. The Aussie has looked in awesome nick all week and the ‘relationship freeze’ with glamour girl Stephanie Rice is paying dividends for both of them. Anything above 1.65 looks good but hard to find.

Womens 4x 200m Free

France set an Olympic record in the heats but the Yanks have their three guns still to come in. France have two ‘stars’ to sub in but Manaudou is way off the boil this week. Can’t see the Americans being beaten here.

No bet

Womens 800m free (20:59 pm Thursday)

This is Katie Hoff v Rebecca Adlington. Hoff wanted all the gold to be like Phelps and she’s going to be going home with none. I don’t see how Adlington is not favourite for this, the 800m is her preferred event and she beat her fair and square in the shorter event, plus won’t have had to swim in numerous other events in the meantime. After the heats, I reckon the Brit will be favourite.

4pts Adlington 2.85 Sports Acumen (back down to 2.5)

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