Sullivan narrowly misses 100 meters freestyle world record

CANBERRA, March 26 (Xinhua) -- Eamon Sullivan narrowly missed the men's 100 meters freestyle world record by just 0.02 seconds after hitting the wall first at the event of the Australian Olympic swimming trials on Wednesday.

Sullivan clocked 47.52 seconds to qualify for the Beijing Olympic Games but annoyed himself for failing to break French Alain Bernard's mark of 47.50 set in Saturday's European Championship final.

Bernard had twice set a men's freestyle world record in consecutive two days after setting the 47.60 mark in the European semifinals on Friday, while Sullivan came within 0.05 seconds of Bernard's record in Tuesday's semifinal.

In the women's events on Wednesday, Jessicah Schipper clocked 2:06.82 to qualify as the top finisher. Teenager Samantha Hamill was runner-up on 2:07.61, denying Athens Olympian Felicity Galvez (2:07.67) another trip to the Olympics.

Brenton Rickard captured the men's 200 meters breaststroke title in a time of 2:09.51 that would have won the world title last year.