Tired O’Callaghan upset in women’s 100m freestyle final
Justin Chadwick |
Mollie O’Callaghan has been pipped for gold in the 100m women’s freestyle final, meaning her bid to surpass Ian Thorpe’s world championships record will have to wait for another day.
O’Callaghan entered Friday night’s final in Singapore as the hot favourite and with the knowledge that a win would give her a total of 12 career gold medals at world championships – eclipsing Thorpe’s Australian record of 11.
“I’d be more than happy to see the record go tonight,” Thorpe said just moments before the race started.
But Dutchwoman Marrit Steenbergen was the party pooper, touching the wall 0.12 of a second ahead of Callaghan.
Callaghan (52.67 seconds) was fourth at the turn, but fought back hard to push Steenbergen (52.55) right to the end.
Callaghan’s busy schedule counted against her.
The 21-year-old, who dislocated her knee in January, won gold on the opening night as part of the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay team.
She then won individual gold in the women’s 200m freestyle, and on Thursday night helped the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay team reign supreme.
Callaghan also had to qualify for the 100m freestyle final on Thursday night.
“I’m tired. I’m not going to lie, last night was a big night. None of those girls did what I did last night,” Callaghan told the Nine Network after her silver-medal performance.
“I’m happy to walk away with a medal. Honestly, I would always love to win, but to get on the podium after such a shit show of a year, I’m pretty happy.
“And it just shows the strength that I have and the work I can do in the future, knowing that I’ve barely done any training for this.”
O’Callaghan has already matched Thorpe’s five Olympic golds. Retired swim great Emma McKeon holds the Australian record for most Olympic golds, six.
AAP
