Swimming: Phelps' eight-golds bid sinks

MONTREAL - Michael Phelps' bid to win a record eight gold medals at the world championships sank without trace in his first event when he failed to qualify for today's 400m freestyle final.

The American faded badly to finish seventh in his morning heat and 18th overall, missing the final by 10 places.

"That's not the way I wanted to start off. It was pretty disappointing," a stunned Phelps said.

"I was surprised, I was good in the warm-up, but in the race it just wasn't there." Phelps stopped the clock at three minutes 50.53 seconds, more than three seconds outside his personal best and almost six seconds behind Australia's Grant Hackett who topped the qualifiers with a time of 3:44.63.

Phelps had never swum 400m freestyle at world or Olympic level before but added the event to his punishing schedule because he wanted a fresh challenge after scooping six gold medals in Athens.

Buoyed by his impressive third placing in the 200m freestyle behind Ian Thorpe and Pieter van den Hoogenband, the American decided to swap two of his favourite events, 200m butterfly and 400m individual medley, to focus on freestyle.

He will still swim the 200m medley and the 100m butterfly as well as the 100m and 200m freestyle and the three relays.

Thorpe is not competing at these world championships after deciding to take a year off to recharge his batteries before the long road to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
- REUTERS