Ryan Lochte gets second spot in qualifying for 200-meter freestyle

LONDON — Sun Yang of China and Ryan Lochte of the United States were back in the pool on Sunday as the top two qualifiers in the 200-meter freestyle hours after their gold-medal efforts at the Olympics.

Sun was fastest in 1 minute, 46.24 seconds coming off his victory in the 400 free on Saturday.

"I'll try to do my best, but the 200 freestyle is not my best event," he said. "It's more difficult for me compared to the 400 meters or the 1,500 meters."

Lochte was second at 1:46.45, having won the 400 individual medley on the first night of Olympic swimming.

"I didn't get to bed until like 2 a.m. so I'm a little tired, but it was a prelims swim, so I'm not too worried about it," said Lochte, who was out celebrating with his family.

Yannick Agnel of France was third at 1:46.60. Also advancing was Park Tae-hwan of South Korea, who finished second behind Sun in the 400 IM after initially being disqualified in the prelims and then reinstated. Park was fifth-fastest at 1:46.79.

Among the top 16 moving on to the evening semifinals were Robbie Renwick of Britain (sixth) and Kenrick Monk of Australia (seventh).

Ricky Berens of the U.S. was eighth, competing in an individual Olympic event for the first time. Paul Biedermann of Germany, the world-record holder, was 10th in 1:47.27 after failing to advance out of the 400 free prelims on Saturday.

Australia unleashed its big guns in the 4x100 freestyle relay heats and it paid off with the top time of 3:12.29.

James "The Rocket" Roberts swam second for the Australians, while James "The Missile" Magnussen anchored. Cameron McEvoy and Tommaso D'Orsogna swam the other two legs.

"I felt nice and relaxed the first 50 and I just let the crowd carry me home at the end," Magnussen said.

The U.S. saved its best swimmers for the evening final. Jimmy Feigen, Matt Grevers, Berens and 2008 Olympic relay star Jason Lezak qualified second at 3:12.59.

The Americans are likely to use Nathan Adrian and Cullen Jones, who went 1-2 in the 100 free at the U.S. trials, while Michael Phelps and Lochte are also in the mix to swim the final.

"There's been talk about it, but at the end of the day it's the coaches' decisions," Lochte said. "They're going to put the best four guys they think are ready."

Emily Seebohm of Australia qualified fastest in the 100 backstroke with an Olympic-record time of 58.23 seconds. She lowered the old mark of 58.77 set by Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe four years ago in Beijing.

"I saw that I was ahead of the world record and I was just like, 'Don't get over your head. Just keep going and just go as hard as you can,'" Seebohm said. "All I wanted to do this morning was to make it through. My goal was just to keep moving forward and now maybe the world record in the final, who knows?"

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