Jasmine Alkhaldi RAFFY LERMA/FILE PHOTO
RIO DE JANEIRO–Swimmer Jasmine Alkhaldi finished third in the second of six heats in the women’s 100-meter freestyle event and failed to progress to the next round of the event in the Rio Olympics here.
The 23-year-old Hawaii-based Alkhaldi timed 56.30 in checking in third in the eight-swimmer race to heat winner Susann Bjornsen of Norway and Junkrajang Natthanan of Thailand.
She wound up 33rd in a field of 46 in swimming’s glamor event ruled by Australia’s Cate Campbell with an Olympic record time of 52.78 seconds.
Bjornsen sank the opposition in Heat 2 with a time of 55.35 seconds with Junkrajang, Alkhaldi’s nemesis in the Southeast Asian Games, pipping the Hawaii-based Filipino-Saudi Arabian by six-hundredths of a second in 56.24.
Alkhaldi’s time failed to break her own Philippine record of 56.10 but it was significantly faster than her 57.13 clocking in the 2012 London Olympics.
Only 16 swimmers advanced to the two-heat semifinals.