Night four of the FINA World Short Course Championships has been rocked by a false start controversy and subsequent poolside chaos that left an Australian swimming legend fuming in the commentary box and saw a young Aussie star brutally miss out on a gold medal.
Just after the start of the men’s 50m backstroke final, a second buzzer sounded immediately signalling the start of the race was void.
But most of the field swam the entire distance at race pace after appearing not to hear the alert, with five of the eight competitors completing the turn and 50m distance. Australian 18-year-old Isaac Cooper was the quickest of the group, finishing in 22.49sec to break his own junior world record — yet that swim and time counted for nothing.
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To make matters worse, the false start was due to a time system malfunction, meaning no-one had been disqualified.
FINA – now known as World Aquatics – said in a statement: “A technical error by an official occurred at the start of the Men’s 50m Backstroke Final. After speaking with all the competing athletes and team officials from the competing countries, it was unanimously agreed that the competition would be re-swum at 21:10 (AEDT) tonight, 16 December 2022. World Aquatics apologises for the error.”
The replay of the race then saw American Ryan Murphy — who was one of the five swimmers who completed the 50m distance earlier in the night — win the final in 22.64sec, with Cooper winning the silver medal with a time of 22.73sec. His time in the first swim would have won him gold.
“In my mind, he (Isaac) won that race,” Murphy told reporters, adding he felt sorry for Cooper that he had to experience that in his first meet.
Five-time Olympic gold medallist Ian Thorpe was left flabbergasted that officials hadn’t intervened quickly and informed the swimmers of the false start decisively.
“They’ve got to notify the athletes. This is rubbish. They have to notify them,” Thorpe told Channel 9.
“There should’ve been a drop (of a lane rope line), if this is a false start, at the 15m mark so that all athletes knew.
“This is a huge disadvantage to those that have continued. Huge.”
A shocked Cooper appeared to say “so we swim that again?” after competing the 50m swim before all athletes were asked to leave the pool.
“This is very confusing down here on pool deck. In fact it’s chaos,” Olympic gold medallist Giaan Rooney said on Channel 9.
Dual Olympic gold medallist Ariarne Titmus said Cooper had every right to feel “pretty upset”.
“There should’ve been a 15m rope that goes down when there is a false start … so that it stops the boys from swimming the rest of the race,” she told Channel 9.
“These guys are pure sprinters, 50m swimmers. So to ask them to get up and go again, straightaway, is not fair.
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“Isaac’s been vocal about the fact that after a 50 or 100m effort, he can feel quite sick and even vomit. He’s technically, from my point of view, just become world champion. Now he has to do this race again with a 50 already under his belt.
“I would be pretty upset. He has just done a PB, technically looked at the scoreboard and thought he’s become world champion then he hears no crowd.”
Earlier, Kyle Chalmers, Matthew Temple, Meg Harris and Emma McKeon combined to claim silver behind France in the mixed 4x50m freestyle relay.
Mollie O’Callaghan won bronze in the 50m backstroke.
— with News Corp Australia
