No magical moment for Hackett in Beijing
Australia’s Grant Hackett was today swimming for his place in history as he attempted to do what he denied Keiran Perkins in 2000, three consecutive 1500m freestyle Olympic swimming gold medals. Just like Perkins he has come up one short.
The final today has seen Tunisia’s Oussama Mellouli upset the great Australian distance swimmer. Mellouli took the lead at the 1100m mark and held on as a late rush came from Hackett. The margin at the end of 1500m was 0.69.
Mellouli’s winning time was 14:40.84 which was slower than the 14:38.92 swum by Hackett in his qualifying swim on Friday. Ryan Cochrane from Canada took third.
It remains to be seen if this is the end of the road for Grant Hackett after what to date has been a fantastic swimming career.
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