New Zealand speed skater Peter Michael has struggled in his first race at the Beijing Winter Olympics, finishing 26th out of 29 skaters in the men's 1500m.
Michael was in the strange position of racing alone, given the odd number of competitors, and simply had to race against the clock.
It didn't appear to help the Kiwi, as he struggled to maintain his speed throughout the race and finished in 1:48.68, nearly four seconds off his personal best.
Michael finished 5.47 seconds off the pace of gold medallist Kjeld Nuis, of the Netherlands, who broke the Olympic record with a time of 1:43.21.
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Fellow Dutch skater Thomas Krol took silver while South Korea's Minseok Kim took bronze.
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