AFP, United States :
Simone Manuel fought back tears Thursday as she described her battle to prepare for the US Olympic swimming trials and a chance to defend her historic 100m freestyle gold from Rio at the Tokyo Games.
Manuel didn’t win that fight, finishing ninth-fastest in the semi-finals to miss out on a spot in Friday’s 100m free final by two-hundredths of a second.
Just making it to the blocks, Manuel said, was an achievement to be proud of.
“I knew that every race I was going to have at this meet was going to be more of a challenge than it has in the past,” said Manuel, who had struggled for weeks with fatigue and depression before she was diagnosed in March with overtraining syndrome – in which an athlete fails to recover adequately from training and competition.
