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Concentration before the start: Bruno Fratus
Photo: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images
20.91 seconds.
This is the world record for the 50m freestyle.
Set up in 2009, for the heyday of the now banned high-tech suits.
A pretty good time, then, one might assume.
After all, the biggest stars of the scene have been biting their teeth on it ever since.
Even a time under 22 seconds clearly belongs in the world class category.
Many competitive athletes would be happy to be able to do this once in their lives.
And Bruno Fratus has not managed this feat once, but on this Thursday evening for the 100th time - albeit actually too early.
Everything would have fit so perfectly.
After the preliminary heats over 50 meters freestyle, which the 32-year-old was able to claim as the fastest with 21.71 seconds, the semi-final was his 99th attempt with a time under 22 seconds.
After 21.83 seconds he was able to put a tick behind this number as well – he could have gotten the 100 according to the spectacular performance in the final on Friday evening.
Only: 21.83 seconds - probably not exactly what he had imagined - that wasn't just the eighth best time in these semifinals.
Another swimmer managed 21.83 seconds.
And so, in the fight for the last place in the final of the top eight swimmers, Fratus had to go into a playoff against Maxime Grousset.
His 100th attempt should therefore be a so-called swim-off.
Fratus and Grousset entered the water shoulder to shoulder, Fratus hitting the other side of the pool 21.62 seconds later – under 22 seconds but also three hundredths behind the Frenchman, who was nine years younger.
Record reached, missed the final.
Late Olympic honor
Bruno Fratus, who broke the 22-second mark for the first time in 2009, has not swum for the first time to break a record.
Even his 90th freestyle track under 22 seconds, performed at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, was historic.
There seems to be no end to the counts in sight.
On the contrary: Fratus actually only won his first Olympic medal last year.
Bronze in the 50m freestyle.
He was as old as no swimmer before at an Olympic medal premiere.
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