Eight Olympic golds winner Michael Phelps failed to qualify for the final in two races, and won the third place in the 100m individual medley in the fourth leg of the short-course FINA World Cup in Stockholm.
In his races Tuesday, the 24-year-old U.S. star chose not to wear a high-tech bodysuit, which will be banned by FINA from Jan. 1, 2010. Until then, swimmers can choose either to use the high-tech ones or to switch back to conventional suits.
The controversial bodysuits did spark a bunch of world records at the world championships in Rome in July.
Phelps, not wearing the high-tech suit, clocked 47.77 seconds in the heats of the 100m freestyle, ranking the 16th.
He was also disqualified in the 100 backstroke heats for an overlong push-off.
The only medal the swimming legend got was the bronze of 100m individual medley. He finished the race in 52.14 seconds, behind the winner South African Gerhard Zandberg and Russia's Sergey Fesikov.
Meanwhile, in this day's games, Chinese swimmer Zhao Jing improved her own short course world record in the 50m backstroke in 25.82 seconds.
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