Shock as Ahmed Hafnaoui of Tunisia powers to gold in 400m freestyle

• Teenager insists he ‘just worked hard’ to improve performance
• Overhauls Australian and American rivals in thrilling last 50m

Tunisian teenager Ahmed Hafnaoui caused one of the biggest stirs of the Tokyo Olympics so far with a stunning 400m freestyle gold medal – but insisted his massive personal best was purely down to “hard work”.

The 18-year-old summoned a thrilling last 50m to come home in 3min 43.36sec to overhaul the Australian Jack McLoughlin, who took silver, and American Kieran Smith, who won bronze. What made the Tunisian’s performance even more impressive was that his PB at the start of the 2021 was six seconds slower at 3:49.90. And while he had improved that to 3:46.16 in the build up to Tokyo, he was still ranked just 16th in the field.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3zE3vl7