2012 Olympics - Men's Swimming (Day 1)

The Guide:

Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte will go head to head for the first of many duels
tonight

Swimmers use four strokes: freestyle (or front crawl), breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly. A medley race is one where all four strokes are used. Most of the races take place in the middle eight lanes of a 50 metre long, 10 lane wide pool, but a longer 10km race takes place in open water.

There will be 14 individual events at London 2012, added to three relays. The individual events comprise freestyle races over 50 metres, 100 metres, 200 metres, 400 metres and 800 metres. There are two events each in backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly (100m and 200m).

Men’s 400m Individual Medley: Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake duelling will be the biggest fight of the games for many but Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps going head to head is one of the biggest features of this year’s events and the 400m medley promises to be a crackerjack between the two, although there was a worry that the biggest shock so far of these games would see us without Phelps in the final, as his leisurely first time in the heats stopped the clock at four minutes 13.33 seconds, just 0.07 ahead of Hungary's Laszlo Czech,who missed out on the final despite being the silver medal holder.

Ryan Lochte, the new hotshot on the block and World Champion at this and 400m, was a best priced 2/5 when last seen at the time of writing and the value from Lochte has gone now, and this is now an event to watch and savour.

Men’s 400m freestyle: This event looks to be at the mercy of Sun Yang, after Korean swimmer Park Tae-hwan, a national hero after winning gold in Beijing four years ago, was disqualified for a false start during his heat. There looks to be little value here either with the champion sadly out, so tread cautiously unless medal betting.