Day 3 prelims at the 2012 London Olympics will be a fairly light session, which just a trio of races. Among those will be Michael Phelps and his return to individual action in the men's 200 fly. This will be his second shot at history of becoming the first man to three-peat an Olympic event.
We'll also see 400 IM World Record breaker Shiwen Ye step to the plate in the 200, which has been her better event in the past.
Live results here (will update with a PDF after the session).
Live streaming video available here (US only).
Women's 200 Free Prelims
Out of the primary medal contenders in this 200 free prelim, only Federica Pellegrini of Italy (the top seed in 1:57.16) and Allison Schmitt of the United States (2nd in 1:57.33) really commanded their races.
Pellegrini closed on her heat, though not quite in a true Pellegrini close but still comfortable, while Schmitt pushed the pace early and was able to back off to save some energy after Sunday's 400 freestyles; many of the other swimmers almost seemed like they didn't put quite enough energy into the early lengths of this race and had to strain on the last 50 meters to feel comfortable about advancement.
The United States' Missy Franklin will be the 3rd seed, swimming next to Pellegrini, with a 1:57.62, followed by a 4th-place tie between Veronika Popova of Russia and Melanie Costa-Schmid of Spain in 1:57.79. Costa-Schmid had a very good finish to grab a high seed and come close to a National Record.
Canada's Barbara Jardin (1:57.92), Caitlin McClatchey from Britain (1:58.03), and Sweden's Sarah Sjostrom (also 1:58.03) round out the top 8.
The two Australians, 400 champion Camille Muffat, former European Junior champ Silke Lippok of Germany, and defending silver medalist Sara Isakovic of Slovenia all were safely through.
Among bigger names who missed are Romania's Camelia Potec. The 2004 gold medalist in this race had qualified for the last three Olympic finals in the event. Also of note, Bulgaria's Nina Rangelova broke her own National Record with a 1:59.21; she swims collegiately in the United States for SMU.
There were two big scratches in this race: Femke Heemskerk from the Netherlands, and Grainne Murphy from Ireland.