Noon, August 8th ET.
The women’s 200m Freestyle race—one of the first major swimming competitions in the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics—will help decide if Missy Franklin, star of the 2012 Games, will be eclipsed by Katie Ledecky, this year’s biggest up and comer.
Franklin stole the show in London at age 17, winning four gold medals and a bronze and setting a world record in the 200m backstroke. But Ledecky may be the biggest star Team USA has seen since Michael Phelps, breaking world records with ease and excelling in multiple events. Already she’s won her first gold in Rio, and set a new world record, in the women’s 400m freestyle.
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Perhaps Franklin should be worried.
Ledecky is the youngest competitor on the U.S. swim team but one of the most dominant swimmers in the pool. Last year, at the 2015 World Championships in Russia, she became the first-ever swimmer to sweep the 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyle in international competition—all races in the freestyle category. That feat is now called the “Ledecky Slam.” She also accidentally broke her own world record in the 1500m freestyle.
Ledecky has the same naturalness and effortlessness spectators admired in Franklin in 2012, but does Franklin still have that casual confidence?
“From what I remember in 2012, I was kind of oblivious to everything that was going on,” Franklin told The New York Times in June. “So I’m kind of trying to channel that a little bit.”
We’ll just have to see what happens in the 200m freestyle.
How to Live Stream the Olympics:
NBCUniversal’s networks and digital platforms will be showing nearly 7,000 hours of programing over 19 days during the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics. NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app will also live stream coverage of the Games for paid TV subscribers via TV Everywhere. You can download the NBC Sports app to your Android TV, Apple TV, Xbox or Roku or use the iOS, Android or Windows Phone apps.
You can also view live stream Olympic matches from NBC here, with no login required.
Additionally, you can catch up on four years of world championships, World Cup matches, and international competitions by Team USA at NBC Olympics and look forward to upcoming competitions with the official Rio 2016 Olympic schedule from NBC.
