NANTERRE, France — (AP) — In another disappointment for the American swim team, Simone Manuel was eliminated in the preliminaries of the 50-meter freestyle at the Paris Olympics on Saturday.
Manuel posted the 18th-fastest time in the hectic sprint covering one length of the pool, not good enough to make it to the evening semifinals.
The first Black woman to win an individual gold medal in swimming touched in 24.87 seconds, 0.15 out of the time she needed to crack the top 16 and a whopping 1.02 behind the fastest qualifier, Sarah Sjöström of Sweden.
Manuel stormed off the deck and right past reporters. Asked to stop for a question, she replied “nope” and kept on going.
The United States went into the next-to-last day of the competition with 21 medals but only four golds, a performance that has fallen short of expectations for the world's dominant swim nation.
Several high-profile swimmers have failed to even make the finals in some of their best events.
Caeleb Dressel, a star of the Tokyo Olympics with five gold medals, was knocked out in the semis of the 100 butterfly and broke down in tears after leaving the deck.
Ryan Murphy, a longtime stalwart in the backstroke, managed a bronze in the 100 back and was knocked out in the semis of the 200 — far short of his goal to reclaim the titles he swept at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.
Manuel came up short, too, in her comeback from overtraining syndrome, which plagued her preparations for the Tokyo Olympics. She won a silver in the 50 freestyle at the 2016 Rio Games, to go along with her historic gold in the 100 free.
The Americans are intent of finishing strong, with several events they are favored to win over the last two days. But it's shaping up to be their lowest gold-medal total since they were limited to eight at the 1988 Seoul Games, which were led by an East German team that was later revealed to have a massive, state-sponsored doping operation.
“I think there’s a bit of realization of just how much the world has caught up,” said American swimmer Jack Alexy. “We’re still doing the best we can and we’re still swimming fast.”
As if he hasn't done enough already, Léon Marchand returned to the pool to lead France to the top qualifying time in the men's 4x100 medley relay.
Swimming the breaststroke leg, Marchand helped the French finish in 3 minutes, 31.36 seconds. He was joined on the team by Yohann Ndoye-Brouard, Clement Secchi and Rafael Fente-Damers.
In the final Sunday, it will be a struggle for Marchand to add another gold to the four individual victories he already has. The United States has won the event at every Olympics except the boycotted 1980 Games since it was added to the program in 1960.
The Americans qualified third in the heats at 3:31.62.
“I think it’s the last (event) of the Olympic Games in France at home, so it’s going to be crazy,” Marchand said in French. “I think we’re going to enjoy it.”
Coming off his win in the 200 individual medley, he conceded, “It was hard to get up this morning. I didn’t sleep very well, obviously. I’m a little tired.”
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