SWIMMING: IT WAS a race too far for Ipswich swimming star Karen Pickering this morning as she bowed out of the individual freestyle competition at the world championships in Japan.

IT WAS a race too far for Ipswich swimming star Karen Pickering this morning as she bowed out of the individual freestyle competition at the world championships in Japan.

For Pickering, who now has gold and a silver from the 4x100m freestyle earlier in the week, the individual competition proved just too much.

In the semi-final she eventually finished with 12th place overall in 2:00.52.

"I am disappointed but after the highs of the last 24 hours I just did not have any more to give out there, although I tried to dig in,' said the Ipswich swimming club stalwart.

Meanwhile, Joanna Fargus continued the revival of British swimming as she struck bronze in the 200m backstroke.

Fargus, a descendent of 19th century naval great Lord Nelson, hoisted the medal tally to four in Fukuoka but admitted she had set her sights on gold.

The 18-year-old came within 0.02 seconds of breaking her own national record as she clocked two minutes 11.05 secs after Romania's Olympic champion Diana Mocanu won in 2:09.94 with Russia's Stanislava Komarova second (2:10.43).

"I am happy to bring home a medal but standing on the victory podium I was thinking it should have been gold," said the University of Bath swimmer who won the European Short Course title in Spain last December.

Hong Kong-born Fargus was fifth after 150m but stormed down the pool in the last 50m to snatch the bronze medal.