The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

GLASGOW, Scotland — As a competitor, there are times when you wish you could erase a performance from your r�sum�. For swimmer Elvis Burrows, his outing in the men’s 50 metres butterfly at the 20th Commonwealth Games was one of them.

After just making it out of the preliminaries with the 14th out of the 16 fastest qualifying times of 24.83 seconds during Tuesday morning’s opening session at the Tollcross Swimming Centre, Burrows ended up in that same position, despite lowering his time to 24.74 for the eighth and final place in the first of two heats in the evening session.

His heat was won by Roland Schoeman of the Republic of South Africa in 23.25, the second fastest qualifying time. England’s Benjamin Proud took the top spot in the second heat in 23.16. The eighth and final qualifier for the final was Brett Fraser of the Cayman Islands, who was fourth in heat two in 23.96.

“That’s the worse time I’ve swum,” said Burrows, the first Bahamian to advance out of the preliminaries on day one of the games. “I’m not really happy with it. I had a disappointing swim this morning.

“I got lucky and got into the semi-finals, but I don’t know what happened. I have to look at the videos and evaluate. I know it’s in me, I’m just not doing it.”

If there’s one thing he doesn’t need to be concerned about, it’s his physical fitness. But the 24-year-old Grand Bahamian said mentally he knows that he can “go much faster than he did. I feel I should have been here in the medal contention and I didn’t make the final.”

What was even more depressing for Burrows is the fact the the 50m fly is his specialty. He holds the Bahamas national record of 23.74 that he posted at the FINA World Championships in Rome, Italy, on July 26, 2009.

Obviously with the times he produced here, Burrows is left bewildered as to exactly what went wrong.

“It’s pretty disappointing, but I will have to see what happens and move onto the next race,” said Burrows, who has the next three days to rest before he comes back on Monday to compete in the men’s 50m free of which he also holds the national record 22.39 that he set at the 2009 Worlds as well.

“This is the hardest part of any athletic sport. You just have to get over it. Bad races happen and this is one of them. I’ve had many bad races and many good races and I’ve gotten over them before and I’ll get over it again.”

Mentally, Burrows feels he may not have had it yesterday because he admits that he was much faster when he went through the race in practice and even in his warm up here at the games.

“When I went out to compete, for some reason, I wasn’t that fast anymore,” he said. “So that makes me think it’s a mental thing. Maybe I need to think about the race more and focus a little more and just block out all my distractions.”

Coming into the championships, the University of Kentucky graduate now competing on the professional circuit, noted that he had a lot of distractions out of the swimming pool, having engaged in a number of modelling gigs and even television appearances.

“I had some hiccups along the way, including changing coaches and getting used to it, so it could be a number of things,” he said.

As he prepares for his final on Monday, Burrows is hoping that he can find that fire that has kept him ignited in the sport over the past few years and eventually he can turn his dismal start around.