Olympian swimmer Elinah Phillip set a new national record in the women’s 50-meter freestyle event at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games in Japan, as she finished second in her heat but missed out on advancing to the semi-final stage.
Swimming in lane 1 of heat number 6, Phillip swam to a time of 25.74 seconds to finish second, breaking her previously set national record of 25.82 seconds which was set at the 2021 Michael Lohberg Invitational in June.
Her race was won by Anicka Delgado of Ecuador in the of 25.36 seconds, but she also did not make it through to the semi-finals.
According to the rules, the top 16 fastest times of the event qualified for the semi-finals, which saw mostly participants from heats 9,10 and 11 making it through the semis with times under 25-seconds.
Australian Emma McKeon set a new Olympic record in heat number 10 of the event, finishing with a time of 24.02 seconds.
Phillip’s second place finish also saw her improving her overall finish at the Olympic Games, with a placement of 34th overall out of 81 swimmers who competed in the preliminary round.
She had finished 48th in the prelims at the Rio Olympic Games in 2016 at the age of 16 years old.
Speaking following the race Phillip said everything that led up to the race went according to her initial plan.
She said, “Today was a pretty typical day for me because Bryan my coach and I have been planning and making sure that everything we do in the days leading up to this minute would all be done today, so not having anything change much from yesterday or the day before took away from my stress or anxiety that I could’ve been having.”
“So yes, I woke up, had breakfast, came to the pool, had an easy swim out, went back rested and the only thing I did different was I had to shave my legs, that’s just something swimmers do,” she added.
Proud of myself
Phillip also said she was proud of her performance and her accomplishment of breaking her existing national record, labelling her presence at the Olympics a miracle.
“During the break in between I did get very anxious but I managed it and managed to hold everything together, stay positive, stay happy and during that time I just decided that no matter what happens today I’m going to be just so proud of myself, I already am so proud of myself because I had pretty hellish year leading up to this and I know it’s a miracle that I’m here,” she stated.
“Not just because of the pandemic but because of so many other personal reasons and I am just so proud of myself, it’s not something that I say very often. I have thanked everybody in the lead up to this and one person that I haven’t thanked is myself because I went through a lot and I made it and I’m just so happy right now,” Phillip emotionally said.
All eyes will now be focused on the BVI’s Chantel Malone, who will be competing in the women’s long jump event on Saturday July 31 at around 8:50pm local time.