Ryan Lochte, the male swimmer of the meet, had a tremendous World Short Course Championships... but it didn't go all his own way.
After his pair of IM world records on the previous two days, expectations were sky high ahead of the 200 backstroke final. However, for the second global championship in a row he was upset in one of his signature events, the 200 back.
All the pre-race signs looked positive. The 200 back was the first final of the day. Lochte was the fastest qualifier having finished his heat swim in a lightning fast 25.93 final 50m split. In 2010 his winning time of 1:46.88 just missed Arkady Vyatchanin's world record of 1:46.11... and we had already seen Lochte swim faster than Dubai this week.
But something happened in the 200 back race, his underwaters stopped dominating his competitors. Watch the start, Ryan Murphy (lane 5) is leading at 25m. On top of that, on the very final turn Lochte went in first, but Radoslaw Kawecki surfaced with Lochte before overhauling him on the touch.
Even the current world record holder (and current training partner of Lochte) was surprised.
@ryanlochte Hey man, where's 1.46? And why did you let this guy win?
— Arkady Vyatchanin (@Arkady_V) December 16, 2012
At first it looked like Lochte might have been trying to do just enough to save himself for the 100 IM final that closely followed the 200 back, however that didn't seem to be the case after seeing how tired he was after the 100 IM. At the same time it is too easy just to chalk it down to the busy schedule he had... Lochte returned later with a 45.2 freestyle leg in the relay, so clearly still had some gas left in the tank.
So the question remains, what happened to Lochte? After his second high profile defeat, has he now lost his unbeatable aura in the 200 back?
(It might not matter soon anyway... Ryan Murphy (17), the second coming of Aaron Peirsol, has arrived)
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