The two fastest swimmers in the world, Frenchman Alain Bernard and Australian Eamon Sullivan re-matched in their heats for 50m freestyle, as the world just saw the duo compete for the title for men's 100m free on Thursday.

Bernard and Sullivan swam side by side in the 50m free heats, finishing in 21.78 and 21.79 seconds respectively, both qualified for the semifinal.

"I will focus on the coming race first of all. A win is not the obvious conclusion. All the competitors will have the same opportunity. I hope to get through the semi," Bernard said.

The French sprinter just beat Sullivan on the morning final for the men's 100m free with a lead of 0.11 seconds. However, he failed to takeover the Australian's world record of 47.05 seconds.

"I feel very good. I still haven't completely realized what happened (about the morning final)."

"Everything went smoothly, and I'm through to the semis (50m semifinals). Now I'm going to get a good rest and sleep well," the French freestyler said.

Swimming phenom Michael Phelps also appeared in men's 100m individual Medley, probably the hardest event for him to realize his eight-gold pursuit at one Games.

"I seem to put myself out there more in the first 50m. It was a preliminary swim and nothing really counts until the finals," Phelps said.

The 11-gold winner's biggest challenge may be posed by his teammate Ian Crocker, who holds the world record at 50.40, but only finished 13th in the heats, following Chinese swimmer Shi Feng into the semifinal on Friday morning.

On the women's side, defending champion Ai Shibata from Japan was kicked out of the semifinal for women's 800m freestyle as she only swam 8:41.63 to finish the race, 17.09 seconds slower than the time at which she snatched the gold at Athens four years ago.

"It was terribly bad," Shibata said. "I was falling behind the leaders during the race so I realized that my time would be bad."

"I feel shameful, but more than that I feel sorry. As a representative I had to get a result and set a good time. After the 400m race I felt weak mentally," the 26-year-old said, adding that she would not consider retirement until the Beijing Olympics was over.

Chinese Li Xuanxu, along with Rebecca Adlington, who already bagged a gold for Britain in women's 400m free race, and Romanian Alina Camelia Potec, all swam into the semifinal.

Zimbabwean veteran Kirsty Coventry led off into the women's 200m backstroke with a new Olympic record of 2:06.76, and Chinese swimmer Zhao Jing also cruised into the semifinal at 2:08.79.

(Xinhua News Agency August 14, 2008)