Kosuke Kitajima (JPN) confirmed himself as the greatest breaststroke swimmer in history when he retained the 200m crown here at the Water Cube in an Olympic record of 2:07.64. On 29.04 at the first turn, Kitajima was 0.14sec under world record pace at 100m, on 1:01.13 (faster than the 100m titles of Lundquist, Moorhouse and Diebel), was still 0.19sec under at 150m in 1:34.05 but fell a touch off his best pace on the way home to take gold 0.13sec shy of his own world record.

Silver went to Brenton RickarD (AUS) in the auspicious time of 2:08.88, with bronze the colour of the Games for Hugues Duboscq (FRA), third in the 100m and now third in the 200m, in 2:08.94. Mike Bronw (CAN) was locked out by 0.09sec, while Daniel Gyurta (HUN), silver at 15 in Athens, took fifth in 2:09.22, slower than his heats swim, which would have got him in the medals.

Kitajima is the only breaststroke swimmer ever to retain both crowns.