Matt Richards reveals he thought he had touched the wall FIRST after missing out on Olympic gold medal in 200m freestyle final to David Popovici by 0.02sec - as Brit claims he now has 'more fire in my belly'

Matt Richards admitted he thought he had touched the wall first in the 200 metres freestyle final as he missed out on an Olympic gold medal by just 0.02sec.

The 2023 world champion had to settle for silver as Romanian David Popovici won in 1min 44.74sec.

But Richards felt he had actually reached the end first - and was only outdone by Popovici putting more pressure on the pad by having longer arms.

‘It felt as if I had touched the wall first,’ said the 21-year-old. ‘I thought I’d got it but it wasn’t my best finish.

‘It’s not a sport where it’s up to debate. It is black and white. The scoreboard doesn’t lie.

‘That’s down to my finish, that is down to my technical ability to get the pressure into the wall.

‘If I got my hand on there first but didn’t put enough pressure through the wall, that’s not the wall’s fault, it’s mine.

‘Last year at the World Championships, I won by two one hundredths. This year I came second by two one hundredths. It comes right down to the wire and that's just the nature of the sport.

‘An individual Olympic silver medal is massive, it’s something I’ve dreamt of since I was a little boy.

‘But I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t dreaming of being one step higher on the podium.’

Richards’ margin of defeat was exactly the same as Adam Peaty’s in the 100m breaststroke final on Sunday night. But Richards has vowed to come back and win gold for Team GB, starting in Tuesday night’s 4x200m freestyle relay, and then his individual 100m freestyle event.

‘If anything, it’s added more fire to my belly,’ added Richards. ‘I’ve got a lot more to go this week. The 100m starts tomorrow and the 4x200m is tomorrow. I’ll try and make the silver medal gold in that.’

Luke Hobson of the United States claimed the bronze, while Britain’s Duncan Scott was fourth, just 0.08sec outside of the medals.

Scott got the silver in the 200m freestyle behind his team-mate Tom Dean at Tokyo 2020 by only 0.04sec.

‘It was so close again, three years later, but it is what it is,’ said Scott. ‘There’s some real quality in there. That was a really high quality field and I really thought I could have done something in that tonight.

‘I maybe saw myself as more of an underdog this time and I think last time I was going in as a bit more of a favourite. But I thought I executed it pretty well.’