James Magnussen looking forward to back up after the upset at the London Olympics – Swimming News
World champion of the 100m freestyle, James Magnussen of Australia, who captured silver medal of the discipline at the 2012 London Olympic Games, is looking forward to regain confidence after his upsetting performance at the Olympic Games.
The 21-year-old Magnussen was the hot favourite to win gold medal of the 100m discipline but he failed to match gruelling efforts of American swimmer, Nathan Adrian in the final parts.
Adrian followed his lead throughout the event but geared up his efforts in the final 25 metres of the swim, outperforming Magnussen with a 47.52 seconds efforts. The Australian remained just 0.01 seconds slower from him and tapped the wall with a 47.53 seconds for silver medal.
Subsequently, the bad patch did not end here, as Magnussen was expected to pave the way of Australian 4*100m freestyle relay team to the podium, which he was unable to do. Australian team failed to live up to the expectations of their fans and finished fourth in the relay discipline.
He also failed to qualify for the playoff of the 50m freestyle, which was quite disappointing for him.
Nevertheless, while commenting on his performance at the London Games, Magnussen said, “You know, I guess having such a successful young career I just felt pretty much bulletproof coming into this Olympics and it's very humbling and I have a lot more respect for guys like Michael Phelps who can come out at Olympics and back up under that pressure. And you know it's a bit of a reality check there.”
“As my coach said earlier in the week, it's [a] pretty tough time to learn that you are human. I really tried to pick myself up after those first few days,” Magnussen added.
He also added that he posted a time of 47.10 seconds at the Australian Selection Trials and was hoping to bring more to his fans at the biggest stage of sports, but was stunned when he was unable to do it.
Nonetheless, the Australian swimmer is hopeful that he will get over it and work harder to make his country proud at the forthcoming swimming events.
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