Matt Richards Does Wales Proud – In And Out Of The Pool – And Fixes Sights On Next Golden Opportunity

By David Williams

Matt Richards was as graceful in accepting a silver medal as he was thunderous through the water as he became the first Welsh athlete to win a medal at the Paris Olympic Games.

Richards – widely recognised as the top prospect for Welsh gold – fell agonisingly short of that goal as he finished second in the final of the men’s 200m freestyle.

The 21-year-old world champion was kicking himself for less than perfect finish that cost him Olympic gold after missing out by just two hundredths of a second.

Yet it was still a magnificent front-leading effort, especially after a below par performance in the semi-finals.

Richards thought he had defied being on one of the outer lanes to touch first in a dramatic, bunched finish but it was Romania’s David Popovici celebrating when they turned to look at the result.

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The Worcester-born Welshman claimed Team GB’s second silver medal of the Games but lost by the same margin that Adam Peaty did in the final of the men’s 100 metres breaststroke 24 hours earlier.

And while there was pride at his achievements, the Team Wales Commonwealth Games star suspected he might not have made enough of a forceful impact on the pressure pad to hand victory to Popovici.

“It’s mixed emotions,” he said. “An individual Olympic silver medal is massive, it’s huge for me, it’s something I’ve dreamt of since I was a little boy.

“But I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t dreaming of being one step higher on the podium.

“That’s down to my finish, my technical ability to get the pressure into the wall. If I got my hand on there first but didn’t put enough pressure through the wall, that’s not the wall’s fault, it’s mine.

“That’s something I’ve got to work on and make sure it doesn’t happen again. I’m young, I plan on being in the sport at least another 10 years yet, so every one of these little lessons I can learn is hugely valuable.

“I did think I’d done enough, coming down that last 25, it did feel to me like I’d touched the wall but it’s not a sport of subjection, it’s black and white – it’s numbers and the scoreboard doesn’t lie.”

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Richards also bemoaned qualifying seventh fastest in the semi-finals, which left him in lane one, but he does not have much time to dwell on the result with individual and relay races coming thick and fast.

He could turn the tables on Popovici across the 100m distance, with the heats starting on Tuesday morning, while in the evening session, Richards and Team GB are defending champions and firm favourites for the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay.

“I probably needed to be more in the middle of the race than that tonight and, again, that’s down to my error last night in the semi-finals, I left that a little bit too fine,” Richards said.

“But it wasn’t meant to be. To get a silver medal is still fantastic, I’ve got a lot more to do this week, there’s still a lot of races, we’ll go again.

“There’s lots of lessons I can learn from the racing, I loved every minute of that tonight, it was a proper dogfight and a real battle that came down to the finish.

“I didn’t quite get my hand on the wall fast enough, David did, he earned that win. I’ll do everything I can to spin it round the other way in the 100.”

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Duncan Scott, who alongside Richards qualified for the event at the expense of compatriot and Tokyo 2020 champion Tom Dean, was unable to make it a British double on the podium.

Scott, runner-up to Dean in Japan, was 0.08 secs adrift of bronze medallist Luke Hobson and 0.15s of Popovici.

Moments earlier, Freya Colbert missed out on a medal of her own, finishing fourth in the women’s 400m individual medley, with Scotland’s Katie Shanahan seventh.

Colbert was in bronze position with 100m to go but Emma Weyant overhauled her in the freestyle leg as 17-year-old Canadian Summer McIntosh, dubbed swimming’s next superstar, claimed her first Olympic gold medal.

Angharad Evans finished sixth in the women’s 100m breaststroke final while Oliver Morgan was eighth in the men’s 100m backstroke.

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