BEIJING, CHINA: When you've come within 0.74 seconds of glory, you can't help but feel disappointed.

It did not matter that Tao Li had already surpassed all expectations by qualifying for yesterday's women's 100m butterfly final - and, in doing so, becoming the first Singapore swimmer to pull off that feat.

'It was very tough swimming the last 50m, I just didn't have any energy left to go faster,' said Tao Li, whose time of 57.99sec was just off Australian Jessicah Schipper's bronze-medal time of 57.25.