200 metres Breaststroke, Women

Marie Baron had been disqualified in her heat at the Paris games after setting what would have been the fastest time of the whole event. She entered 1928 as the world record holder and with a chance of earning a gold medal for the host nation but the performance of two German swimmers over the course of the summer had changed the outlook for the event. Lotte Mühe broke Baron’s record just three weeks before the Games whilst the reigning European champion, Hilde Schrader, was also in good form. Schrader broke the Olympic record in heat, equalled the world record in the semi-final and comfortably took the gold medal ahead of Baron and Muhe. Although Schrader’s time in the final was her slowest of the Games there was a mitigating factor, the champion suffered a “wardrobe malfunction” when one of the straps of her swimsuit broke. “I would have gone faster”, she said, “if I had not been so embarrassed”. The standard of this event had improved had improved greatly in the four years since Paris, 1924 silver medallist Agnes Geraghty swam 16 seconds faster but did not make the final. Geraghty’s compatriot Jane Fauntz was lucky even to make the Olympics, six months earlier she had suffered serious injuries after being hit by a car.