Olympics-Swimming-Loader wins second gold in 400 freestyle

[Reuters]

ATLANTA, July 23 (Reuter) - Danyon Loader achieved a golden
Olympic swimming double when he added the 400 freestyle title to
the 200 freestyle gold he won last Saturday.
Loader hit the front 100 metres from home on Tuesday and
stretched away to score a clear victory by more than a second
from Britain's Paul Palmer and Australia's Daniel Kowalski.
Sweden's Anders Holmertz, Olympic bronze medallist in 1992,
took the race out in his familiar bold style in the outside
lane, with Kowalski just behind.
Palmer, the European silver medallist, moved into second
place at the halfway mark but Loader took charge at 300 metres.
The black-capped New Zealander, who came away from the 1992
Barcelona Olympics with a silver medal in the 200 butterfly,
left the rest in his wake and touched in three minutes 47.97
seconds.
Palmer gained Britain's first swimming medal with the silver
in 3:49.00 and Kowalski, bronze medallist in the 200 freestyle,
took his second Atlanta bronze in 3:49.39.
There was no challenge to the 3:43.80 world record of world
champion Kieren Perkins who failed to qualify for the event in
the Australian trials.