Coventry tumbled in the heats after coming out seventh place. Missy Franklin from United States won the final in 2.05.10 seconds last night. However, Franklin failed to beat Coventry’s world record of 2.04.08 set at the World championships in Rome in 2009.
Coventry told Standardsport from Shanghai yesterday that failing to make it into the 200m backstroke finals, was pushing her to perform better at the Olympic Games in London next year.
“These girls are fast, I still have a lot of intense training to do! Looks like Missy Franklin from the US is going to be my toughest competitor, she just won gold in the 200 back, very near my record.
“There is some close racing amongst the girls, this is great as it helps push me to train harder,” she said yesterday.
The 27-year-old swimmer’s management team said she is at the world championships as part of her training for the Olympic Games.
“Kirsty has gone into World Championships as part of her training for London 2012 Olympics. It has been a year now since Kirsty got back into training after taking her break between 2009 and 2010. She is using this championship to gauge how well her training has been and how much she still needs to do.
“Kirsty’s personal goals were to get faster times than she did during last month’s races in Monaco and Italy. She was also hoping to make final eight. Unfortunately in both her 200IM and 200 back she never made it through to finals. Although her times were good, they were slightly off last month’s races. She races the 400IM tomorrow (today), heats starting at 9am,” the management team said.
The swimmer, who also failed to make to the finals of the 400m medley early in the week, told the media in China on Thursday that illness had bogged her down.
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“It’s been a bit of a rough meet,” she said. “I had flu two weeks before I got here which wasn’t the best preparation. I’m trying to have strategic races and hope that gets me into finals.”
