Ullalmath finishes last in 1500m freestyle

London: India`s lone participant in swimming, Gagan Ullalmath finished last in the men`s 1,500m freestyle heats to end his London Olympics campaign on a disappointing note here today.

Ullalmath finished last in the seven-man heat number one and his 16:31.14secs effort was the worst timing among the 31 swimmers who participated in the four heats of the event. The 20-year-old from Bangalore had qualified for the Olympics under FINA`s strange "universality" clause while four of the country`s more fancied swimmers had failed to make it to the Games. Ullalmath was at the rear from the very beginning and he finished the race more than 40 seconds behind the sixth-place finisher and more than one minute after the heat winner Arturo Perez Ferrer of Mexico completed the race. Ullalmath could not even touch his personal best of 15:59.33 that had earned him silver at the Asian age group championship in Jakarta last year. PTI