Disappointment for Michael

By now, many of you will know Michael Jamieson came fifth in Friday's 200 metres backstroke final at the World Championships in Barcelona.

The first 50 metres of the race initially set up a mouth-watering prospect as Michael and his Bath team-mate Andrew Willis, raced into the lead. However, the second 50 metres saw them fall back to 5th (Willis) and 6th. They never really recovered from there despite trying to charge down the last length of the pool, and finished in 4th and 5th.

Michael's time of 2.09.14 was just one hundredth of a second behind Willis's, who in turn was an agonising 18 hundredths off snatching the bronze. Michael was well down on his qualifying time which saw him seeded number one going into the championships. Had he maintained that form, he'd be coming home with a silver medal at least.

We know from Michael's latest guest post things haven't gone that smoothly for him this season, so hopefully he will be able to get over his disappointment and learn from this race. On Saturday he tweeted the following honest appraisal of how it went for him:

"Hope interviews came across as intended. Hard to speak truth about effects of injury without sounding like I'm making excuses. I didn't perform badly, swam as well as I could at about 80% fit. 1 full week of training in past 9 took its toll in a pretty unimpressive final, but at the end of the day, injury or not, still got no medal & that's hard to take! Sorry to disappoint after so many good luck notes!"

At least Michael now has some time to recover from his injury properly without the pressure of having to race. Here's to some solid training over the next few months, to set him up for a home advantage in the Commonwealth Games next year!