If you blinked last night, like I did, you missed Cullen Jones in the 50 M semi-finals. I was all, NBC is wrong for that! I was fussing!

But we have a DVR, and I asked my husband to rewind it. And it was such a short clip that I almost missed it again! My husband had to explain to me that it was a high-light, not an actual race. I began a whole new round of ‘NBC was wrong for that!’

And I did what I do every day anyway. I checked nbcolympics.com, and I watched the whole race. So it was two heats. The first heat featured the two hyphenated dudes that swam the 100 M free–Wildman-Tobriner and Weber-Gale. Blah, blah, they came in 1 and 2. The second heat featured Cullen Jones and Gary Hall, jr., who was going for his 4th Olympics. Going into the race, Cullen Jones was the US record holder in the 50 M free, and Wildman-Tobriner, the world record holder.

Cullen Jones swam like I’ve come to expect him to swim. He starts slow, and then grows in speed until the last 15 M, when he races and reaches for the wall. Unlike his finish in the 100M, however, this time he didn’t take an extra stroke before touching the wall. He just reached and glided, and touched the wall first. His time of 21.71 ensured that he won his heat, and was second overall behind Wildman-Tobriner, whose time was 21.65.

The times to beat are Jones’ American record time, which he set earlier in the day at 21.59, and Wildman-Tobriner’s world record time, set last year at 21.28.

The finals are tonight. I can hardly wait.