LONDON – This is the moment Bradley Ally has been waiting for.
Everything else was just a warm-up.
Ally has been drawn in the second of five heats in his pet event, the men’s 200-metre individual medley tomorrow, just after 6 a.m.
Swimming out of lane four, he will need to lower his seed time from 2:00.03 to reach the last 16 later in the evening, first of all, before thinking about the final.
Ally swam the 400IM and 100-metre backstroke, but did not advance in either event. He reached the semi-finals of the 200IM in Beijing four years ago.
Today, five CARICOM athletes are in the men’s 100-metre freestyle heats which start the programme at 5 a.m. They are Guyana’s Niall Roberts, Esau Simpson of Grenada, Trinidadian George Bovell as well as Caymanians Brett and Shaune Fraser.
Meanwhile, Jamaica’s Alia Atkinson finished a very commendable fourth in the women’s 100-metre breaststroke here at the London 2012 Olympic Games.
After being forced to do a swim-off to reach the final ahead of Canada’s Tera Van Beilen, Atkinson clocked 1 minute 06.93 seconds in the final.
Gold went to Lithuania’s 15-year-old Ruta Meilutyte in 1:05.47 and American Rebecca Soni (1:05.55) took silver for the second consecutive year. Japan’s Satomi Suzuki was third in 1:06.46 and defending champion Leisel Jones of Australia was fifth, just edged by Atkinson.
It was the best performance in the pool by a Jamaican since Janelle Atkinson (no relation), finished fourth in the 400m freestyle in Sydney 2000.
Atkinson will also swim in the 200m breaststroke tomorrow morning at 5:43 a.m. Barbados time.
Also swimming tomorrow will be Guyana’s Britany van Lange and Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace in the women’s 100m freestyle.
