Brave third-place finish from injured Shane Ryan not enough to for Olympics progress
By Will Downing
Shane Ryan’s Olympic swimming campaign is over after first-round elimination in the men’s 50m freestyle at Rio’s Aquatic Centre today.
The 22-year-old, who injured his ankle in the run-up to Tuesday’s 100m freestyle, still came third in his heat in a time of 22.88 seconds, finishing just behind Hong Kong’s Geoffrey Cheah (22.46) and Marlo Todorovic of Croatia (22.65).
It being the sixth heat, the top three already knew they had been eliminated, with Ryan finishing in 43rd position overall by clocking a time 0.09 seconds outside his best.
Shane Ryan is poolside in Rio to warm up for his Men's 50m Freestyle heat at 17:12. 👊🏻🇮🇪 #TeamIreland pic.twitter.com/V9UbmIGokj
— Team Ireland (@TeamIreland) August 11, 2016
Barry Murphy’s Irish record of 22.14 from 2009 wouldn’t have been good enough for the top-16 cut-off for the semi-finals either.
Murphy’s mark would have taken 19th place, with the cut happening at 22.10 seconds.
Reigning European 50m butterfly champion Andrii Govorov of Ukraine was fastest overall in 21.49 seconds, ahead of Americans Nathan Adrian and Anthony Ervin, both of whom were involved in the USA’s 4x100m freestyle relay title.
