Community Corner
Magnuson Swims in Finals Tonight for Olympic Spot
Tinley's Christine Magnuson will swim her heart out tonight for a chance to compete in the 100-meter butterfly during the upcoming Summer Olympics. The race will be televised on NBC. Cheer for our hometown gal!
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will soon dive into tonight's Olympic time trials for a chance to compete in the Summer Olympics' 100-meter butterfly, a race in which she took the silver medal in 2008.
The finals for the event—she's in Omaha, NE, where all swimming trials are held—kick off on NBC at 7 p.m. and conclude at 8 p.m. Magnuson landed an eighth-place spot in them Monday after getting a semifinal time of 58.72 seconds, according to a Sun-Times Media report.
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Much of Monday's press converage surrounded first-place 100-meter butterfly swimmer Dana Vollmer, who set a 56.42 second record in the race. When Magnuson won the silver in Beijing, her time was 57.5 seconds.
"Olympic trials, when it comes down to it, are a little bit of a crap shoot," Magnuson told Patch last month. "It comes down to touches and hundredths of a second."
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The Sun-Times article states that all eight swimmers to reach the finals are separated by a fraction of a second—.54, to be exact. The first two finishers tonight will get spots on the U.S. Olympic Team.
Magnuson, whose time of 57.32 was the fastest in the world in 2010, did improve upon her Monday morning preliminary time of 59.05. In both her prelim and semifinal heats, Magnuson started well and dropped back, from first to fourth in the prelim and from third to fourth in the semi.
If she doesn't make the team tonight, her Summer Olympic chances are far from over. She will also be competing June 29-30 for a coveted opportunity to swim the 100-meter freestyle. She races in the 50-meter freestyle July 1-2.
Her parents, Geri and Bill, and sister Jackie, among other friends and family members, are cheering her on in Omaha.
For more information about Christine, read . For details on the schedule and what she's swimming, read .
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