Michael Phelps isn’t happy with his teams recent third place showing against Australia in the 4 x 100m freestyle relay, their first loss in a major showing in seven years and now he’s promising that the team will use the pain of defeat to prepare for the 2012 Summer Olympics Games in London .
Team USA lost in Shanghai during the first night of swimming when the Australian team led by James Magnussen set a faster pace than Phelps during the teams first race defeat since the 2004 Olympics.
Speaking of the loss Phelps said:
“It’s frustrating. As we all said after the race, it’s not how we want to start it.”
Phelps continued:
“We know what we have to do to get back and we all said standing up on the podium it’s clearly not the spot we want to be in, so this is really going to be a motivation.”
Team USA finished nearly a full second behind Australia’s 3min 11.00sec time while Phelps was swimming with Garrett Weber-Gale, Jason Lezak and Nathan Adrian.
The loss was also Phelps’ first loss in a major even race since the 2004 Athens Games.
Asked what his team will need to do in order to win he gave a simple answer, “Clearly we need to be faster” while adding, “That’s the easiest thing. Those guys jumped on that first 100m and got to open water and I think that’s something we need to do in that race.”
Regardless of the loss the team is still expected to be a top contender at the 2012 London Olympic Games.