Michael Phelps fails to medal in first race at London Games

Phelps moved from third to second position in the second 50 meters of the race, but was never able to mount a serious charge from there. His splits gradually faded as the race went on, and he slipped from second to third during the second half of the backstroke leg. Hagino overtook Phelps in the front end of the freestyle and was never seriously threatened for third place.

Michael Phelps couldn't keep up in the men's 400m IM. (AP)

Phelps arrived at his block in typical fashion – goggled up and under a set of headphones. He toweled off his block and shook his arms, loosening up before taking his perch. But his departure was far different than anything we’ve seen in an Olympic games. After touching, he stared at the video board in mixture of disgust, disbelief and anger.

"The biggest thing is to get past this and move forward," Phelps said. "I have a bunch of other races. Hopefully we can finish a lot better than we started."

The result may have been a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts for Phelps, who dominated the 400 IM worldwide for the last five years but repeatedly let the world know his distaste for the grueling event. After capturing the gold in the event in Beijing, he vowed it would be the last time he entered it in the Olympics. But as London crept closer, Phelps and his coach Bob Bowman gave signs they were once again looking at the event as a challenge Phelps could handle.

The superstar of the Beijing Games came stunningly close to even missing the medal round of the 400 IM, snagging the eighth and final qualifying spot Saturday morning by out-touching Laszlo Cseh by .07 seconds – 4:13.33 to 4:13.40. His time was almost six seconds slower than both his qualifying time in this year’s Omaha trials and his preliminary time in Beijing four years ago.