South Africa’s Roland Schoeman took silver in the Olympic 100m freestyle event on Wednesday night, but gold went to Pieter van den Hoogenband of The Netherlands who defended his Olympic 100m freestyle title.
Van den Hoogenband won the gold medal in 48,17 seconds — 13 hundredths of a second faster than his winning time at the Sydney Games four years ago.
Schoeman took silver in 48,23 seconds after being edged out in the closing metres.
Van den Hoogenband was sixth at the turn as Schoeman displayed the form that helped South Africa claim the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay gold in a world-record time.
Schoeman’s split of 22,60 seconds put him under world-record pace as he hit the wall ahead of relay teammate Ryk Neethling.
Australia’s Ian Thorpe earned bronze in 48,56 seconds despite swimming in a far outside lane because he had the slowest qualifying time.
South Africa’s other swimmer in the race, Neethling, finished fourth.
Van den Hoogenband, who holds the world record in the 100m, earned his third medal in Athens. He won silvers in the 200m freestyle and the 400m freestyle relay.
Thorpe won his fourth medal of these Games. He beat Van den Hoogenband for gold in the 200m freestyle, won the 400m freestyle and helped Australia to a silver medal in the 800m freestyle relay. — Sapa-AP
Special Report: Olympics 2004