Anthony Ervin admitted the USA men's relay team were stunned after failing to reach the 4x100m freestyle final for the first time in world championships history on Sunday.
The experienced USA quartet of Jimmy Feigen, Ervin, Matt Grevers and Conor Dwyer won their heat, but their time of three mins, 16.01 secs was only the 11th fastest with only the top eight teams going through to Sunday night's final.
"I honestly don't know," said a stunned Ervin when asked for an explanation.
"We're stunned by the overall results. We have just got to go back and analyse it.
"Jimmy looked pretty good coming in, I felt good going out.
"I died real bad at the end of my leg, which is not uncommon.
"I didn’t really see the rest of the relay, I was still kind of rolling around in a bit of a lactic acid blackout."
Having won the silver medal two years ago when the world championships were held in Barcelona, the USA had been one of the favourites for gold in Kazan along with reigning champions France and hosts Russia.
The USA had been so confident of qualifying that they rested their top stars, which is not uncommon in the heats, but paid the price for resting Olympic 100m freestyle champion Nathan Adrian and 15-time world gold medallist Ryan Lochte.
Ervin said there was no hint of the disaster to follow in their training and preparation, but the 2000 Olympic 50m freestyle champion was struggling for breath in the mixed zone.
"We had felt good going in," panted the 34-year-old.
"We all thought we were feeling good and confident.
"We thought we were going to send a little bit of a message this morning.
"We saw the clock and it was just like 'whoa!'.
"The number just seemed so off."
Source: AFP
GMT 22:27 2018 Thursday ,13 December
Russian swimmer Prigoda takes gold in China with new WR in men’s 200m breaststrokeGMT 11:54 2018 Tuesday ,11 December
Ajax and Bayern in tasty Champions League duel for first placeGMT 17:44 2018 Tuesday ,23 October
Russian UFC Champ Nurmagomedov’s win was "fair and square"GMT 21:29 2018 Friday ,19 October
Moscow to host 2020 European Weightlifting ChampionshipsGMT 16:48 2018 Monday ,15 October
Russian fighter Nurmagomedov may be suspended for six monthsGMT 18:14 2018 Sunday ,07 October
Russia’s Nurmagomedov crushes McGregor, defends UFC titleGMT 17:44 2018 Thursday ,04 October
Underdogs CSKA beat Real Madrid in Moscow while a man downGMT 16:40 2018 Sunday ,02 September
Unified Korean team delivers historic medals, hopesMaintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©
Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©
Send your comments
Your comment as a visitor