Lochte suffers early setback
Ryan Lochte fails to qualify for an event he won in London in 2012.
OMAHA, Neb. — The first event of the U.S. Olympic swimming trials produced a stunner when Ryan Lochte failed to qualify for the team Sunday night in an event he won at the 2012 London Games.
Lochte, an 11-time Olympic medalist, raced out to a big lead on the first two legs of the 400-meter individual medley but had nothing left for the breaststroke and freestyle. He finished third behind Chase Kalisz and Jay Litherland, who were college teammates at Georgia.
After the race, Lochte revealed that he pulled a groin muscle during the morning preliminaries, saying it left him with no choice other than to try to build a commanding lead in the butterfly and backstroke and hope it would hold up. It didn’t. Not even close. Kalisz won in 4 minutes, 9.541 seconds; Litherland rallied to take the second spot for Rio in 4:11.021.
Lochte, his legs totally gone, labored home in third at 4:12.021.
“I had to go out faster than usual because I couldn’t use my legs in the breaststroke,” said Lochte, 31, who has several other events to claim his spot on his fourth Olympic team — assuming he can overcome his injury. “I did everything I could in that race, it just wasn’t enough. Just got to forget about that and move forward.”
Situation day to day
While college teammates Kalisz and Litherland celebrated, Lochte hung on a lane rope, totally exhausted. He finally made it over to the side of the pool, struggling just to climb out of the water. He said he might need a cortisone shot to help deal with the pain.
“I’m going to keep working on it day in and day out, and hopefully it gets better,” Lochte said. “I thought about it this morning, about scratching, but I mean, it’s the Olympic trials. If I had a broken leg, I’d still go out there and swim.”
In the women’s 400 IM, Maya DiRado qualified for her first Olympic team, knocking off 2012 silver medalist Elizabeth Beisel.
DiRado, who plans to retire after the London Games at age 23, is a late bloomer who peaked at just the right time. She touched in 4:33.73, finishing a couple of body lengths ahead of Beisel, who earned a spot on her third Olympic team by holding off Texas A&M’s Bethany Galat.
Beisel finished in 4:36.81; Galat missed out on the Rio Games by less than a second in 4:37.69.
In the men’s 400 freestyle, Connor Jaeger and Conor Dwyer are heading back to the Olympics for the second time after finishing 1-2. Jaeger won in 3:43.79, while Dwyer took the runner-up spot in 3:44.66 — just 0.38 ahead of thirdplace finisher Townley Haas. Michael McBroom, a former University of Texas swimmer who competes for The Woodlands Swim Team, finished a distant eighth (3:52.60).
Former Texas A&M standout Camille Adams, who is from Cypress but trains in North Carolina, was 12th in the women’s 100 butterfly and failed to qualify for the finals.
Kalisz knew he would need a comeback to beat Lochte.
“I don’t have a fly and backstroke like him, so I’ve got to play to my strengths,” Kalisz said. “The whole thing went by so fast and I feel like I’m in a different reality right now.”
All’s not lost
Lochte has entered five more events at the trials, giving him plenty of chances to make the Olympic team.
But the groin injury makes him a huge question mark.
“He’s somebody who’s really, really tough,” Michael Phelps said. “Hopefully, he can get some recovery and get whatever he needs worked on. He’s somebody we need.”