AU IN THE OLYMPICS: Cielo has record-setting day

Special to the news

Published: August 14, 2008

BEIJING — Auburn University athletes’ successes in the pool at the 2008 Olympic games continued Thursday.

Cesar Cielo (Brazil), Kirsty Coventry (Zimbabwe) and Margaret Hoelzer (United States) each moved on to finals.

Cielo advanced to the finals of the 50m freestyle, finishing first in the semifinals in an Olympic-record time of 21.34.

Cielo will swim in the 50m freestyle as the top overall seed today at 9:30 p.m. on NBC (channels 12 and 13 in Lee County).

Coventy and Hoelzer, former roomates at Auburn, both swam in the semifinals of the 200m backstroke.

Coventry finished first in the semifinal heat and first overall with a time of 2:07.76 while Hoelzer finished third in the same semifinal heat with a time of 2:06.09, good enough for a fifth-place overall placement heading to today’s finals.

Both will race today in the finals at 9:03 p.m.

Earlier in the day Thursday, Cielo and Coventry set Olympic records in the 50m freestyle and 200m backstroke respectively in the quarterfinal rounds.

Several other current, former or future Tigers also swam in quarterfinal races.

Former Auburn swimmer George Bovell of Trinidad & Tobago and AU signees Gideon Louw (South Africa) also advanced to the semifinals in the 50m free.

Former AU swimmer Jakon Andkjaer (Denmark) raced in the 50m free quarterfinals, but failed to reach the semifinals.

Two former AU swimmers competed in the 200m backstroke preliminaries with Coventry and Hoelzer.

Gisela Morales (Guatemala) finished 27th overall and Erin Volcan (Venezuela) finished 32nd.

Former Auburn swimmer Fred Bousquet of France advanced to the semifinals in the 100m butterfly but failed to reach the finals.

Andkjar, Alexei Puninski (Croatia) and Jeremy Knowles (Bahamas) also raced in the prelims of the 100m butterfly.