BARRY MURPHY WAS hoping for some ‘outside smoke’ as he headed for lane eight of his 100 metres breaststroke heat, but left the pool disappointed that he could not muster a performance to match his personal best.
“I thought I had a best time in me coming in here.” The Dubliner lamented to Will Downing as he left the Aquatics Centre in 29th place.
However, Murphy did concede that his time of 1:01.57 was as good as he could have realistically expected.
“There’s good things and bad things: that’s the fastest time I’ve done in the morning, my second-fastest ever in the event. At the same time, this is the Olympic Games and you want to be coming in and swimming lifetime bests and ready to go.”
“If you’ve seen my 100′s (metre races) all year,” added Murphy, “they’ve been a bit off. I haven’t really been showing good form in the 100m. You can only do what you can do and that was the best I could do today.”
Knocked out of the reckoning after one race, Murphy will now turn his attention to his favoured discipline – 50 metres freestyle – in which he will compete on Thursday.
“Thankfully (breaststroke) is not my only event. I’ve got the 50m freestyle where I’ve been showing good speed all year. I can forget about breaststroke now and start concentrating on the freestyle, which I haven’t been doing for a week or two.”
He has been drawn in lane five for his heat over the minimum distance.
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