Women's Freestyle

Britain has two female freestyle swimmers in the 2006 World top ten for three Olympic events.

Form

Scotland's Caitlin McClatchey won gold in the women's 200m freestyle at the Commonwealth Games. Rebecca Cooke of England successfully defended her Commonwealth 800m Freestyle title, and then took Bronze at the European Championships behind team-mate Rebecca Ardington who won Silver. Jo Jackson won Silver in the 400m freestyle at the European Champions, with Caitlin McClatchey claiming bronze to add to her Commonwealth Gold.

Events	Women's A	Women's B	Competitor	2006 World Rank	2006 Ranking Time	Championship Medal
50 m Freestyle	0:25.43	0:26.32	Francesca Halsall	19	25.28
100 m Freestyle	0:55.24	0:57.17	Francesca Halsall	17	54.88
200 m Freestyle	1:59.29	2:03.47	Caitlin McClatchey	3	1:57.25	Gold @ Commonwealth Games
			Melanie Marshall	9	1:58.11	Bronze @ Commonwealth Games
400 m Freestyle	4:11.26	4:20.05	Joanne Jackson	8	4:07.76	Silver @ European Championship
			Caitlin McClatchey	7	4:07.69	Gold @ Commonwealth Games
800 m Freestyle	8:35.98	8:54.04	Rebecca Adlington	5	8:27.88	Silver @ European Championship
			Rebecca Cooke	7	8:28.40	Gold @ Commonwealth Games

Qualification

The A and B qualification times are shown in the table above for the specific events. The qualification period is from 15 March 2007 until 15 July 2008. British swimmers reached the 'A' standard in all of the the freestyle events, so there should be plenty of competitors to support in Beijing.

What to watch

The main medal chances lie in the 200m and 800m events with two strong competitors in both events. These are the finals that we will be targeting. The 400m also has two competitors in the tiop ten and we'll be watching for performances at the World Championships.