Phelps suffers shock 200m defeat

Michael Phelps’s rocky season took another turn for the worse yesterday when the 14-time Olympic gold medallist was stunned in the World Championships 200 metres free-style by US team-mate Ryan Lochte.

Phelps led over the first 100m until Lochte surged from third place to claim a narrow win in 1min 44.44sec, with defending champion Paul Biedermann, of Germany, third.

The result means Phelps, the Olympic champion and former world record-holder in the event, fails to regain the crown he lost to supersuit-wearing Biedermann two years ago.

“I think that if I was on the other side of the pool that race could have been played a little different. I think I woke him up in the first 100 and he went with it,” Phelps said.

“I can’t complain. But at the same time with what we’ve done over the last 18 months, I’m over a second faster than I was last year and a second-and-a-half off my best time in a suit.”

Phelps remains on course for a possible five gold medals in Shanghai, which would match his haul in Rome two years ago. He claimed bronze on Sunday when the United States suffered a rare defeat in the 4x100m freestyle relay.

Meanwhile, Camille Lacourt and Jeremy Stravius bizarrely became France’s first male world champions – in the same race.

Both swimmers won the 100m backstroke in 52.76, in only the second such incident in championships’ history.

The unusual result echoes 2007’s 100m freestyle world title race when Italy’s Filippo Magnini and Brent Hayden, of Canada, both topped the podium with identical times of 48.43.

In other results, America’s Rebecca Soni defended her 100m breaststroke world crown ahead of Olympic champion Leisel Jones, of Australia, and Asian title-holder Ji Liping, of China.

And Zhao Jing secured China’s second swimming gold in another upset win when she beat Olympic title-holder Natalie Coughlin into third place in the women’s 100m backstroke.

Zhao finished in 59.05sec, just one-hundredth of a second faster than 2009 silver-medallist Anastasia Zueva, of Russia.

The win for Zhao, 20, follows Ye Shiwen’s stunning triumph for China in the women’s 200m individual medley, when she shocked the reigning world and Olympic champions on Monday.

Also yesterday, Danish 800m world champion Lotte Friis built an early lead and stayed ahead to win the women’s 1,500m by six seconds from American world record-holder Kate Ziegler and China’s Li Xuanxu.

But most attention focused on Phelps, who has said he is into the final year of his career as he builds towards London 2012 where he will aim to add to his 14 Olympic titles – including a record-breaking eight in Beijing.

The 26-year-old Baltimore Bullet admits he has struggled for motivation since the 2008 Games, and has slumped to a series of shock defeats this season.

He arrived in Shanghai with 22 world titles but suffered a disappointing start when the United States finished third in the 4x100 metres relay, ending an unbeaten world and Olympic streak stretching back to the Athens Olympics in 2004.

Phelps also finished second in his men’s 200m butterfly semi yesterday to secure a place in today’s final.

Agius off record

Swimming in a heat of the 50m breaststroke yesterday, Maltese swimmer Andrea Agius covered the distance in 30.47 seconds which was 0.47 outside his own national record set in Berlin last March.

On Sunday, Agius swam the two-lap breaststroke event in a new national limit of 1:06.13.

The two other Maltese swimmers in Shanghai, Andrew Chetcuti and Nicola Muscat, are due to compete in the 50m freestyle and backstroke, respectively, later on this week.

Waterpolo
Men’s quarter-finals: Hungary vs US 9-8; Serbia vs Germany 9-4; Croatia vs Montenegro 9-6; Italy vs Spain 10-6.
Semi-finals (tomorrow): Hungary vs Serbia; Croatia vs Italy.
Women’s semi-finals (today): Greece vs Italy; Russia vs China.