Racing free of distractions away from his biggest rivals, a focused James Magnussen fired a significant warning shot to the rest of the 100m freestyle field in the world championships heats.
Magnussen, the defending world champion, bounced back from a disappointing swim in Australia's 4x100m freestyle relay team to gap the field in Wednesday morning's individual heats in Barcelona.
He glided through the water to clock an impressive 47.71 seconds, well ahead of his nearest rival, Poland's Konrad Czerniak (48.50), and more than a second ahead of Olympic champion Nathan Adrian (48.93).
Magnussen's swim was a considerable improvement on his 48.00 lead-out in the opening-night relay, a swim his coach Brant Best blamed on getting caught up in a "macho" battle with American Adrian.
The 22-year-old Australian admits he didn't swim as smart as he should have in that race.
But in further evidence of Magnussen's improved attitude since London, where he was just beaten to individual gold by Adrian, he hasn't dwelled on the performance.
Nor is he readying too much into his heat swim.
"I'm just keeping my emotions out of it this year," Magnussen said.
"So each swim I leave it in the water and I look towards the next one.
"I'm not sure what happened with the first one.
"If there is one saying that is getting me through at the moment it is 'it is what it is'.
"As soon as I finish my race I just keep looking forward because as soon as you start dwelling on something your week can snowball."
Swimming in a separate heat to fellow title contenders Adrian and Russian Vladimir Morozov, Magnussen said he felt relaxed and technically strong on Wednesday.
"It just felt a lot more comfortable I think is the word," he said.
"But it's just a heat so we move on."
Magnussen was joined in Wednesday night's semi-finals by fellow Australian Cameron McEvoy, who was sixth fastest in 48.59.
"It was a good back up after last night," said McEvoy, who finished seventh in the 200m freestyle final.
"It's the quickest heat swim I've ever done so it was good."
Emily Seebohm, who won silver in Tuesday night's 100m backstroke final, backed up to be 15th-quickest into the 50m semis in 28.48.
China's Fu Yuanhui (27.55) was fastest but Belinda Hocking (28.80) missed out.
Daniel Tranter (1:58.76) and Kenneth To (1:59.21) both progressed to the men's 200m individual medley semi-finals.
Share
