Danielle Hill missed out on a place in the 50m freestyle Semi-Finals on a busy day in the pool for Northern Irish swimmers, which includes a return to action for gold medallist Daniel Wiffen.
Although she was already an outside shot at a medal, Hill was well off the pace in her heat and finished last in a time of 25.02s, which was 0.3s off the pace required to crack the top-16 that qualified for the Semi-Finals.
Swedish two-time Olympic gold medallist Sarah Sjöström topped the timings in the heats with a fine swim of 23.85s which was almost half a second faster than her competitors, Poland’s Katarzyna Wasick second fastest in 24.27s and the USA’s Gretchen Walsh clocking a 24.37s time.
Larne Swimming Club star Hill will get a chance at redemption when she goes in the 4x100m medley relay heats at 11.52am where she will compete alongside fellow Northern Irish medal hopeful Grace Davison.
Wiffen, who won Northern Ireland’s fourth ever Olympic gold medal in the 800m freestyle on Tuesday, is due in the pool in the third heat of the 1500m freestyle, which gets under way at 10.30am, before Conor Ferguson takes part in the 4x100m mixed relay for Ireland at 11.40am.