Hayden sinks to sixth, fails to qualify By Rob Longley, SUN MEDIA

BEIJING - He may be the world champion in the men’s 100-metre freestlye, but Canada’s Brent Hayden won’t be swimming for Olympic gold in his signature event.

Hayden struggled to a disappointing sixth-place finish in the semi-final and will did not qualify for the final. The loss comes as a huge blow to the revamped Canadian team, which has made some nice strides here, as Hayden was clearly the best prospect for an individual medal.

It started out badly on Tuesday when a gulp or two of water from the Olympic pool through him off for a few strokes. Hayden was able to recover and win that heat and with a time of 47.84 seconds, he looked like a shoo-in to advance.

But drawn into a tough semi-final heat here Wednesday morning, Hayden struggled in the middle portions of the race annd finished a disappointing sixth in a time of 48.20 seconds.

It didn’t h in the middle of his race wasn’t enough to slow down the B.C. swimmer who will take his shot at a medal in his big event Thursday morning here at the Water Cube.

Though he closed some in the final 20 metres, Hayden was well off the pace of Australia’s Eamon Sullivan, who hit the wall first in a blistering world record time of 47.05 seconds.

Falling short was a surprise for Hayden, who had looked good in the 4x100 metre relay earlier in the Olympic swim meet and seemed to set the tone for a final berth with his effort in the heat. But with some of the world’s top sprinters lighting up the quick Olympic pool, Hayden’s time was the 11th fastest overall.

Despite his win in the prelim, Hayden made a crucial mistake that could have taken him out of the competition even earlier. Shortly after the midway point, he gulped down a couple mouthfuls of water.

“I’m pleased with my time even though a couple of technical things went wrong,” said Hayden, the Canadian record holder who was to race in the final of the 4x200 metre relay later Wednesday morning.

“Going for air and getting a mouthful of water instead ... that puts a damper on doing well. It was the second breath out of the turn. It’s happened to me before. You just learn not to panic, that a breath is coming in two more strokes.”

Hayden figured he would have to go faster to have a shot at the podium, even though he entered the semis ranked No. 3 behind Sullivan and Swede Stefan Nystrand going in.

After his semi-final effort on Wednesday, Hayden had to quickly regroup for the men’s 4x200 relay, Canada’s first real medal shot at the Games.

With a busy 12 hours for the B.C. swimmer, the Canadian coaching staff took a chance and rested Hayden from the relay qualifying on Tuesday night. But the foursome of Rick Say, Brian Johns, Adam Sioui and Andrew Hurd did their job, qualifying third in their heat.

“We’re obviously better than we’ve been and we sat out our two best swimmers,” Say said after the heat. “We all did our job. We just need a lane for the final.”

With Hayden advancing to the 100-metre freestyle final, Canada has now qualified six swimmers for medal races, double the amount from the miserable showing in Athens four years ago. Later on Wednesday, Stratford, Ont.’s Julia Wilkinson was scheduled to race in the women’s 200-metre Individual Medley final.