'It is such a close finish!' - Keri-Anne Payne reveals the marginal gain that won Tom Dean gold by 0.04 seconds
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Updated 27/07/2021 at 17:32 GMT
Eurosport analyst and Olympic silver medallist Keri-Anne Payne praised Tom Dean for staying focused in the final stretch of the men's 200m freestyle and said he ended up pipping GB team-mate Duncan Scott to the finish by 0.04 seconds by keeping his head lower as he came in towards the finish.
'Shows how much mental strength he has' - Keri-Anne Payne on Tom Dean's performance
British swimmer Tom Dean won the gold medal in the men's 200m freestyle by keeping a low head position as he made for the finish line, according to former Olympian Keri-Anne Payne.
Dean pipped fellow Team GB member Duncan Scott to gold by 0.04 seconds while Brazilian Fernando Scheffer claimed bronze.
South Korea's Sunwoo Hwang took an early lead and stayed ahead with 50 metres to go before running out of steam and ending up finishing second-last.
Payne, who won a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Games and competed in London 2012 and Rio 2016, credited Dean for staying focused in the final stretch and positioning his head lower than Scott to get a marginal gain when it mattered most.
"Tom doesn't actually see Duncan at all down the last 50, he is just doing his thing, put his head down and swimming down this last bit," Payne told Eurosport's Tokyo Today.
"You can see that the Korean (Sunwoo Hwang) is just next to Tom, is really struggling, Duncan is right up next to them now and you can see here, the first position changes.
"Now it's all down to the last 10 metres which is about who has got what left in the tank. And it is such a close finish.
"Actually it was four one-hundredths of a second. And you can see here actually if you look, if I was going to be really critical of Duncan's finish, you can see his head position is quite high in comparison to Tom's, his head is quite low in this position here so it was won by four-hundredths of a second."
Payne said Hwang suffered in the end for making too strong a start.
"The Korean led the whole swim from the very beginning, he had an incredible first 100," she said.
"I would say too fast, he was 0.3 under the world record, and you'll see now as we come into the turn, he is tired when he pushes off the wall."
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