When Thorpe broke the 200 m freestyle Olympic record in the heats the following morning, his main rival Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands (with World No. 2 ranked and teammate Michael Kim bypassing the 200 metres) conceded defeat. However, van den Hoogenband showed his hand in the semi-finals by cutting more than a second off his personal best, to set a new world record of 1 min 45.35 s. Thorpe qualified second with a personal best of his own, 0.02 s slower, and was under immense pressure to win the final the following day after his double gold on the first night. Van den Hoogenband started quickly and Thorpe chased him, reaching the 100 m mark just 0.04 s behind. Both swimmers turned at 150 m in identical times. As a result of starting harder than usual, Thorpe faded as van den Hoogenband drew away to claim gold and equal his world record, stunning the home crowd. Thorpe touched in 1 min 45.83 s, the first time that he had swum slower in the final than in the qualifying rounds. Thorpe would never lose to van den Hoogenband in a long course 200 metres race again.