Mack Horton, one of the two active Australian swimmers with an individual Olympic title, failed to qualify outright for any individual events for next month’s world championships.
Horton, who memorably beat Sun Yang in the Rio Olympic 400m freestyle, finished second in that event at Australia’s trials this week. Normally, that would be enough to make the team for a major international meet.
But Horton’s time — 3:46.47 — was .33 off the Australian federation’s minimum standard (though he is ranked eighth in the world this year). He took gold in Rio in 3:41.