London 2012: Heartbreak for Gandy who suffers heats failure in butterfly bid

By James Cunliffe
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
11:29 AM

Olympic swimming: Gandy fails to make semi-finals

Ellen Gandy’s bid for the 200m Olympic butterfly glory ended in heartbreak at the first hurdle as she finished one place outside the top 16 semi-final qualification spots.

After clinching silver in the world championships last year the Beckenham racer had been expected to challenge for a medal, particularly after she reached the final of the 100m butterfly at the Aquatics Centre on Tuesday, where she finished eighth behind USA’s Dana Vollmer – who set a new world record of 55.98 seconds.

The 20-year-old led heat three for the first three legs but tired in the home straight and came in fifth with a time of 2:09.92 seconds behind winner and world champion Jiao Liuyang.

It left Gandy hoping that the first six swimmers in the final heat would finish slower.

But her dreams were extinguished as the fourth session was incredibly fast, with less fancied GB team-mate Jemma Lowe putting in an excellent performance to come in second behind the US’ Kathleen Hersey.

After her swim Gandy said: “I felt fine for the first 100m, but in the second part I don’t know what happened, it felt like I had been hit by a bus.”