Franklin, Grevers fail; Phelps on track for Rio

Michael Phelps took another step towards a last Olympic hurrah on Tuesday as 2012 gold medalists Missy Franklin and Matt Grevers failed to qualify at the US swimming trials for the Rio Games.
 Franklin and Grevers were just the latest big names to fall in Omaha, where Ryan Lochte had already failed to qualify to defend his 400m individual medley crown.
 Franklin, whose four gold medals in London included the 100m and 200m backstroke, could manage only seventh place in the 100m back won by Olivia Smoliga in 59.02sec.
 Kathleen Baker finished second in 59.29 to put herself on the road to Rio.
 The only swimmer to finish behind Franklin was 33-year-old Natalie Coughlin, who won gold in the event in the 2004 and 2008 Games.
 “Oh my gosh, it was a star-studded field,” Smoliga said. “To have all those girls in there, and I know every single one of them, so it’s so comforting to have them in the ready room.”
 “You know they’re going to put up such a great race, such a great fight, and it was a fight,” she added. “I’m just so happy with the outcome.”
 Franklin faced an uphill battle after posting the seventh-fastest semi-final time, and the 21-year-old couldn’t produce a miracle from lane one. Her time of 1:00.24 left her 1.22sec off the pace.
 Less than half an hour earlier, she eased into the final of the 200m freestyle with the fourth-fastest time in the semi-finals, which were led by the indomitable Katie Ledecky.
 “I am feeling more pressure than I ever have before,” Franklin admitted. “Right now, I need to make the team in whatever way that looks like.”
 Grevers, the men’s 100m back gold medallist in 2012, came up just short in that event, finishing third in a scintillating final won by Ryan Murphy in 52.26sec.
 David Plummer grabbed the second Rio berth in 52.28sec, with Grevers out in the cold in 52.76.
 “My heart breaks for Matt,” Murphy said. “He’s been dominant in that event for so long.”
 But the 20-year-old who won relay gold at last year’s world championships has high hopes of keeping the 100m back title in US hands.
 “Hopefully, we have a good shot of going one-two,” he said.
 Townley Haas, 19, won the men’s 200m free final in 1:45.66, just one one-hundredth of a second ahead of Conor Dwyer.
  Lochte, the 11-time Olympic medalist battling a groin injury that has threatened his Rio bid, is at least assured of travelling to the Games as part of the relay pool thanks to a fourth-place finish—96-hundredths of a second behind the winner.
“I’m just happy that I’m going to Rio,” he said.
 Lochte still has the 200m backstroke, 200m medley and 100m free to come, but, ominously, described the pain from his injury as “seven or eight” on a scale of one to 10. “I can’t really think about that,” he said. “I made the Olympic team, I’m going to Rio.”
 Lilly King booked her first Olympic berth in style, winning the 100m breaststroke in 1:05.20, the world’s fastest time this year.
 Katie Meili stuck with her to finish second in 1:06.07, which put her inside the top five in the world this year.
 Of the eight swimmers to punch their tickets in individual events, only Dwyer has competed in the Games before. The bevy of new Olympians produced in the first three days of racing caught the eye of Phelps, who is trying to become the first US man to make a fifth Olympic swimming team.
 “I don’t even know half of them,” said the 18-time gold medallist who topped the 200m butterfly semi-final times in 1:55.17 and can clinch is Rio berth in Wednesday’s final.
 “It’s good for our sport,” he added. “It’s exciting to have new faces of people who are really pumped to come up into the sport. That’s a good thing to see as I’m on my way out.”
Meanwhile, Phelps continued to trim his program, scratching from the preliminaries of the 100 metres freestyle. The most decorated Olympian of all-time with 22 medals, Phelps will now attempt to qualify in just three events for the Rio Summer Games, the 100 and 200 metres butterfly and 200 individual medley.
 Phelps, who turns 31 today, will try to give himself an early birthday present by clinching a place in his fifth Olympic team when he swims in the 200 butterfly final. The 18-times Olympic gold medallist also pulled out of the 200 metres freestyle on Monday.

Park seeks ‘urgent’ ruling on Rio ban
Lausanne: South Korean swim star Park Tae-Hwan is seeking “an urgent ruling” by July 8 on his appeal against his Rio Olympics ban over doping, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said yesterday.
 The multiple Olympic medallist completed an 18-month suspension in April after testing positive for an anabolic steroid in out-of-competition controls before the 2014 Asian Games.
 But he remains barred from competing in Rio, where the Games begin on August 5, under a national rule which prohibits athletes from representing South Korea for three years after the expiration of any doping ban.
 Park’s legal team said earlier this month that they would challenge that rule at the Lausanne-based CAS.
 July 8 is the cut-off date for selection to South Korea’s Rio-bound swimming team.
 Park is seeking a judgment “that would potentially allow him to compete” in Brazil, CAS said.
 Park has repeatedly begged for a chance to compete in what would be his third, and probably last, Olympics—at one point getting down on his hands and knees during a press conference.
 The 26-year-old was once the poster boy of South Korean swimming—courted by advertisers and idolised by fans—before his positive test was revealed in January last year.