Swimming at the 2008 Beijing Summer Games:

Six weeks before the Beijing Olympics Margaret Hoelzer, the 2007 world champion, took half a second off the world record at the US Olympic Trials in Nebraska. Her main rival for the Olympic title appeared to be the defending champion Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe whose record Hoelzer had broken. Coventry turned the event into a time trial and passed every 50 metre split under the existing world record. At the finish she was 0.8 of a second inside the previous mark and a second clear of Hoelzer with Reiko Nakamura repeating her performance of 2004 by claiming third place. Coventry, who had been world champion in 2005, regained her world title in 2009.