GOLD COAST, Australia -- Chad Le Clos gave it a good crack but two finals inside 20 minutes proved a mission too far, as his quest to set a new record for the most Commonwealth Games medals of all time ended on Friday night.
But South Africa's star swimmer still had much to smile about after he picked up a gold medal he hadn't counted on before the Games in the 50m butterfly. With English star Ben Proud disqualified in Thursday's heats, Le Clos powered down the pool to claim victory in a time of 23.37 seconds.
"If Ben was in the final, he would have won for sure," Le Clos said. "Fortunately or unfortunately, whatever you want to call it, I'm happy with that. Hopefully I can get the 100 and 200, nobody's done that before, but (winning the 50m) is pretty cool."
But the bigger challenge was always going to be backing up in the 200m freestyle a touch over 20 minutes later. He also had to negotiate his medal ceremony for winning the 50m 'fly during that time, too.
And Le Clos certainly made a valiant attempt, the now 13-time Commonwealth Games medallist leading down the first 100 metres before he faded to finish seventh behind Australian superstars Kyle Chalmers [gold] and Mack Horton [silver], and Scotland's Duncan Scott.
"I mean it's not the breathing, like now I'm tired, it's the lactic acid that you can't flush out," Le Clos said of his turnaround. "I did this time trial last weekend and the weekend before that, and this was my best time. But it was very tough, especially the last 50.
"So I wanted to try and go out hard and kill the race if I could and hang on...I saw Kyle coming past and I nearly grabbed his leg. But fair play to Mack and Kyle; it's surprising, 1.45 for both of them is very impressive. Mack's a 400 swimmer and Kyle's 100 swimmer; so let's see what happens in the 100 freestyle."
Le Clos was back in action in the last event of the night as he and his South African teammates contested the men's 4x100m relay. But they could only manage a sixth-place finish, leaving Le Clos needing a medal in each of his five remaining races to match the record [18] held by Briton Mick Gault and Aussie Phillip Adams.
"It is what it is, I don't make excuses," Le Clos said about the unfortunate timing of his earlier two races. "If I had more time then maybe things could have been different. There's no 'but' to champion, it either happened or it didn't happen.
"I can tie, I can still get six medals. But I'm 25 years old, this is my third Games, those other guys did it in six Games. I will get that record, so it's no problem."
Le Clos' next event is the 200m butterfly on Saturday.