Dunedin swimmer Erika Fairweather felt “a little bit gutted” after narrowly missing out on winning New Zealand’s first medal at the Paris Olympics. She finished fourth in the women’s 400-meter freestyle final.
Erika was hoping to become the first New Zealand woman in 72 years to win an Olympic swimming medal. She made a strong push at the end of the race, finishing only 0.26 seconds behind the bronze medalist, Katie Ledecky, with a time of 4 minutes and 1.12 seconds.
This race was called the women’s “race of the century” because it featured the four fastest women in the world. Ariarne Titmus won the race, defending her title from the Tokyo Olympics, and beating Summer McIntosh by 0.88 seconds. There was a small gap between Ledecky and Fairweather.
“It was a tough field, someone had to be fourth,” Erika told Sky Sports. “Fourth is great. It’s an Olympic final, I just got fourth, obviously by one of the smallest of margins.”
Even though she was proud of her effort, Erika was not completely happy with her performance. “Obviously a little bit gutted to get fourth. Nobody wants to be there, but I have done myself proud. I mean, that was an Olympic final and I just came fourth in it.”
Erika gave everything she had in the race but felt she could have done better. “That was everything I had in the bank today. It wasn’t the performance I wanted to put out there at all. I’ve been much faster, and I think I can go much faster, but that is the nature of sport – you can’t always be on.”
