Fast finish not enough for Le Clos in 200m freestyle
CHAD le Clos produced a lightning finish, but it was not enough to keep his 200m freestyle crown at the world short-course championships in Canada on Wednesday night.
Le Clos was last going into the halfway mark and by 150m he had caught up just one place‚ but then he delivered his trademark kick to touch in 1min 41.65sec behind Korean veteran Taehwan Park‚ who had won the 400m crown the previous day.
The South African also took silver in this event at the Rio Olympics‚ but his strategy this time was different.
In Brazil, he went out hard and held on‚ while on Wednesday night – early yesterday morning SA time – he switched it around.
His 24.93sec final 50m was more than half a second quicker than the next-fastest‚ Park‚ in 25.53.
Two years ago, Le Clos swam a more evenly paced race to win in a slightly faster time‚ but his 1:41.45 then still would not have been good enough in Canada.
Russian Aleksandr Krasnykh was third in 1:41.95 while Le Clos’s teammate‚ Myles Brown‚ ended tied fifth in 1:43.22.
Le Clos was back in the water soon afterwards in the 100m butterfly semifinals‚ finishing third in the fastest heat of the night behind Briton Adam Barrett and American Tom Shields.
Barrett clocked 49.21 ahead of Shields in 49.46 and Le Clos in 49.84.
But Le Clos‚ looking to win his third consecutive world title in this event‚ still went into last night’s final with the advantage‚ owning the world No 1 ranking courtesy of the 48.66 he clocked some months back.
Le Clos‚ who recently moved from Durban to Cape Town‚ also owns the 48.44 world record he set two years ago.
In the heats later yesterday, Olympians Brad Tandy and Doug Erasmus were due to swing into action in the 50m freestyle.