World champion Lewis Clareburt has opened his second Olympic campaign with an unconvincing first-up heat in the men's 400m individual medley.
The Kiwi raced in heat two, where he faced French favourite and current world recordholder Leon Marchand. There was no question around Marchand's form, as he raced out to the lead straight away, leaving Clareburt in a battle for fourth and fifth.
"I could tell I was behind from the start," he said. "i could hear the crowd, obviously.
"it was pretty bloody loud for Leon, but I knew my pacing was pretty good. I knew what I had done was going to be enough.
"I had a bit of a dogfight with the others at the end and managed to get there in the end. To go through in the final of that race... I'm glad to have snuck in with a third equal."
Clareburt touched the wall with a time of 4m 11.52s, just enough to qualify him into the final with a threeway tie for sixth-fastest time.
"I'm in the final now, so anything can happen!" he insisted. "We studied the rest of the field of where they are going to be and how fast they're going to go.
"I know a lot of the guys in that field are getting a lot older now, so backing up may not be as easy as what it might be for the younger guys. It's going to be an interesting race tonight."
In the Olympic lead-up, rumours had Clareburt hitting impressive times. He told 1News late last year he joined Marchand in a training session, where he completed the exact same training schedule as the swimming great to help him achieve world-best times.
Clareburt has confirmed to media he was pulling off times quicker than he'd imagined.
"I surprsied myself to be honest," he said. "I've got a lot of confidence, so hopefully tonight I can show it.
"I'm calm, collected. I was confident there was a spot for me in the final and there was.
"I'm confident in my abilities and I hope I can post another time faster than this morning."
Meanwhile, Erika Fairweather has had little time to dwell on her heartbreaking fourth-place finish in the women's 400m freestyle final, with the Dunedin swimmer qualifying through to the 200 metres semi with a time of 1m 56.54s.
"After backing up from last night, there was a lot of things going on physically and emotionally, so happy with the performance I put down this morning," she said.
Fairweather, 20, qualifies through with the seventh-fastest time. In her semifinal, she will again go head to head with Aussie Ariarne Titmus, who defended her Olympic gold in the 400m freestyle.
"I've never made a 200 metre final for Olympic free, so we’ll see how it goes."
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