Erik Persson, who in May took the European Championship bronze in the 200 meter breaststroke, went to the Olympic final yesterday as the eighth and last man - after a weak second half of the race.

In today's final, it was about the same.

After a weak start, he advanced to the middle of the field, but lost during the second half of the race.

And when the race was over, Erik Persson was eight and last, in the time 2.08.86 - which was his slowest race during the Olympics, and over a second slower than his European Championship bronze time.

Australian Zac Stubblety-Cook took gold, in the new Olympic record time of 2.06.38.

The silver went to the Netherlands' Arno Kamminga, and the bronze went to Finland's Matti Mattsson.

Mattsson, who set a Finnish record in the time 2.07.13, thus became Finland's first medalist in this Olympics.

ARCHIVE: Here Erik Persson takes the European Championship bronze (May 20):

Javascript is disabled

Javascript must be turned on to play video

Read more about browser support

The browser is not supported

SVT does not support playback in your browser.

We therefore recommend that you switch to another browser.

Read more about browser support

Erik Persson.

Photo: Bildbyrån.