Swim­mer Nikoli Black­man was far from his best in the men's 50-me­tre freestyle fi­nal event of the FI­NA World Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships in Li­ma, Pe­ru on Fri­day night, fin­ish­ing sev­enth in a time of 22.83 sec­onds.

How­ev­er, he dis­played good form in the men's 100m freestyle to send a strong sig­nal of a pos­si­ble medal.  

He went in­to the event (50m free) as the fourth-fastest swim­mer at 22.71, which he pro­duced at the Pan Amer­i­can Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships at the Na­tion­al Aquat­ic Cen­tre in June. On­ly Croa­t­ia's Jere Hrib­ar (the fastest time at 22.32), Por­tu­gal's Diego Matos (22.35) and Nans Mazel­li­er of France (22.44 sec­onds) were fastest than him.  

Ear­li­er Fri­day, Black­man post­ed the same time (22.83) in the sec­ond semi­fi­nal heat to qual­i­fy for the ti­tle swim. But, ex­pect­ing to im­prove in the fi­nal, the Fa­ti­ma Col­lege stu­dent could not achieve that, as the Por­tuguese (Matos) swam ahead of the field to claim the gold medal in a quick time of 21.92 sec­onds.

Niko­las An­to­niou of Cyprus se­cured the sil­ver in 21.55 sec­onds and Hrib­ar took the bronze medal in a time of 22.55.

Yes­ter­day, Black­man sig­nalled ear­ly in­ten­tions of mak­ing up for his dis­ap­point­ment in the 50m freestyle by ad­vanc­ing to the semi­fi­nals of the 100m freestyle. Swim­ming out of lane two in heat 11, Black­man was again not at his best but did enough to move on to the next round with a 50.87 sec­onds per­for­mance in sixth po­si­tion.

He was the last qual­i­fi­er out of that heat to progress. A joint first-place fin­ish summed up how com­pet­i­tive the heat was, with both Pieter Co­et­ze of South Africa and Mazel­li­er post­ing 50.09 sec­onds for the top spot.

Ro­ma­nia's Patrick Se­bas­t­ian Dinu was third with 50.31 while Ma­tias San­ti­so (Ar­genti­na) with 50.47 and Matheus Pereira of Brazil with 50.75 se­cured the fourth and fifth po­si­tions, re­spec­tive­ly. The semi­fi­nals were sched­uled to take place on Sat­ur­day night with the fi­nal on Sun­day.