LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Simone Manuel won the 100m freestyle at the Pro Swim Series in San Antonio on Thursday (March 4), but the US Olympic champion admits she is still feeling the upheaval of the Covid-19 pandemic as she pushes towards the rescheduled Tokyo Games.
"I don't think there will ever be a sense of normalcy with something like this," said Manuel, who shared Olympic gold in the event with Canadian Penny Oleksiak in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
"We've essentially been training for five years for the Olympic Games. That takes a lot of mental strength."
Manuel, who won four medals in Rio and went on to win four golds and three silvers at the 2019 World Championships, was on course to make a big splash in the Tokyo pool in 2020.
Although she has found the pandemic-enforced delay challenging, she knows she is not the only athlete to feel the same.
"I don't feel cheated," she said. "I'm not the only one to experience this extra year. It's just an obstacle that all of us have had to face."
In her first full-fledged long-course meeting in a year, Manuel said she "would have liked to see something better" than her winning time of 54.62 seconds in the 100m free.
But she was glad to feel the "different type of jitters" a meet produces.
Abbey Weitzeil was second in 54.68 and distance star Katie Ledecky third in 54.74.
Ledecky later returned to win the 400m free in 4:05.00, nearly seven seconds off her world record.
It was her second victory in two days, after her dominant win in the 1,500m free on Wednesday.
Blake Pieroni won the men's 100m free in 49.19sec. Nathan Adrian, the 2012 Olympic 100m free gold medallist, clocked 49.53 to win a consolation final in which multi-event star Caeleb Dressel - the two-time defending world champion - finished third in 49.75.
Tokyo-bound Singaporean swimmer Quah Zheng Wen won the men's 200m butterfly in 1:57.52, nearly two seconds off Joseph Schooling's national record.
American Tom Shields was second in 1:59.05 and Chase Kalisz third in 1:59.08 while Dressel settled for eighth in 2:02.15.
World championships silver medallist Hali Flickinger won the women's 200m butterfly, finishing strong in 2:07.55 to beat double backstroke world record-holder Regan Smith (2:08.85).
Michael Andrew won the 100m breaststroke in 1:00.10. Like Manuel, Andrew said the time left plenty to be desired, but he, too, was pleased to be back racing as the US Olympic trials loom in June.
"It's huge," he said. "This is actually my first long course race, it's exactly one year to the day. The time's a second slower than it was in Iowa last year, so lots to still work on."
