Erika Fairweather (Ngāi Tahu) has finished just outside the medals in the women’s 400m freestyle final, won by defending Olympic champion and world record holder Ariarne Titmus of Australia in 3:57.49 minutes, at the Paris Olympics on Sunday morning (NZT).
The Dunedin 20-year-old was fourth in 4:01.12 minutes, 3.63 seconds behind Titmus, after qualifying third fastest in a time of 4:02.55 minutes for what international media had dubbed “the race of the century”.
Her grandparents shared their pride in their mokopuna online, posting “So proud congratulations love Nana.”
She is proud of herself too, although a little tearful.
“Obviously, a little bit gutted to get fourth, no one wants to be there,” said Fairweather.
“But, I’ve done myself proud - that was an Olympic final and I just came fourth.”
Fairweather was third after 100m but fell back to fourth at 200m. She held that position through the 300m mark but couldn’t quite chase down the leaders in the race to the finish despite finishing strongly.
The silver medal was won by Summer McIntosh of Canada in 3:58.37 minutes, just 0.88 seconds back from the Australian champion, and the bronze medal was claimed by Katie Ledecky of the United States with a time of 4:00.86 minutes.
Fairweather was eighth in the same event at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 when she was just 17 years old, clocking 4:08.01 minutes.
In July last year, she became only the fifth woman in history to go under four minutes for the distance, with a time of 3:59.59 minutes at the world championships in Japan.