Fran Halsall's final woe as she finishes out of medals

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Marco Giacomelli13 April 2012

There was bitter disappointment for Fran Halsall today as she missed out on a medal at the World Championships, having gone into the final of the 100metres freestyle as the fastest qualifier.

The European champion was out of the top three at the turn and although the Briton is traditionally faster over the second 50m she was unable to close the gap.

Halsall, who picked up silver in the worlds at Rome in 2009, finished fourth in 53.72 sec, which was just 0.06sec behind Ranomi Kromowidjojo of Holland.

The race threw up the second dead heat for a gold in these championships, with Denmark's Jeanette Ottesen and Aliaksandra Herasimenia, of Belarus, both finishing in 53.45sec. In Shanghai on Tuesday, France's Jeremy Stravius and Camille Lacourt shared top spot in the 100m backstroke.

Earlier, Britain's Rebecca Adlington produced a blistering 800m freestyle to qualify fastest for tomorrow's final.

Adlington was fourth in this event at the last world in Rome, badly knocking her confidence. Today the 22-year-old led until the 550m mark when defending champion Lotte Friis edged ahead, the Dane gaining on her turns.

However, the Briton did not let her opponent get ahead and a storming final length saw Adlington touch in 8min 22.27sec. Friis, who won the 1,500m freestyle title this week, was 0.80secs adrift.

Adlington had to wait for the final race of the last event of today's morning session before she could return to the pool for the first time since she won 400m freestyle silver on Sunday.

She said: "It's hard work, especially in the morning. I had no clue what time I was doing - I could have been doing an 8:40."

Adlington claimed the Olympic crown in Beijing in world record time when all finals were swum in the morning because of the demands of TV.

She added: "It's the quickest I've gone in the morning except for Beijing when you didn't know whether it was morning or night anyway. The whole team is shocked by the depth just to get to finals. I just had to try to make sure I got through."

Team-mate Ellen Gandy was still on cloud nine as she returned to the pool little more than 12 hours after winning the silver medal in the 200m butterfly.The 19-year-old was in action in the 50m butterfly- her third event of the week following her fifth in the 100m event as well as yesterday's exploits.

The fact she finished equal 20th in her least favoured event in 27.01sec mattered little to Gandy.

Asked whether she had come down off the high of last night, she said: "No! I think you can see from the smile on my face. This morning was pretty fun, I just wanted to get in and have a good race but I think my start was awful."

Gandy has been sharing a room with Jemma Lowe, who came seventh last night after being fastest into the race.

Gandy admits the contrast in emotions can be hard, saying: "When you've done well it's difficult but we've been doing this for a long time together, we've had a lot of experience with things like this and vice versa when she's done well and I haven't. We know how to treat each other."

American Ryan Lochte claimed his third gold of the championships, leading from start to finish in the 200m backstroke.

Lochte won in 1min 52.96sec more than a second ahead of the runner-up, Japan's Ryosuke.

Lochte also won the 200m individual medley and the 200m freestyle, beating Michael Phelps into second in each race.

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