The brutality of the Olympic Games was brought home to Magnussen in the cruellest way when he was touched out by the narrowest possible margin - 0.01 second. It is less than the eye can see, but unfortunately not less than the clock can measure.
The 21-year-old Magnussen had taken the lead in the last 25m of the race but giant American Nathan Adrian fought back and managed to get his hand on the wall first in 47.52sec, the fastest race of his life.
The young Australian swam his fastest 100m of the Games, 47.53sec, but it was almost half a second slower than his winning time at the Olympic trials back in March, 47.10sec.
The Olympics has a way of humbling the unwary and Magnussen admitted that after winning the world title last year, he had been over-confident about transferring that triumph to the ultimate arena.
"Yeah, that hurts," he admitted."I did my best tonight and it wasn't quite good enough.
"To lose by that amount stings a lot ... It's been a tough Olympics. They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger so hopefully I come out of this a better swimmer but most of all a better person."
"I guess having such a successful young career I just felt pretty much bulletproof coming into these Olympics and it's very humbling. I've got a lot more respect for guys like Michael Phelps who can come to an Olympics and back up under pressure. You know, it's a bit of a reality check. As my coach said, it's a pretty tough time to learn that your human, but I really tried to pick myself up after those first few days and I gave it everything for myself and the people of Port Macquarie and Australia."
Magnussen's malaise comes as Australia's swimmers slide towards their lowest medal haul at an Olympics in 20 years.
While the women's 4x200m freestyle team added another silver medal, the swim team have collected eight medals in London - and just one of them is gold.
They will be hard-pressed to sneak another gold to surpass the return from the 1992 Barcelona Games of one gold from nine medals.
At every Olympics since Barcelona, Australian swimmers won at least two golds in double-figure medal hauls.
In Beijing four years ago, they snared six golds among 20 medals - but head swim coach Leigh Nugent conceded London's results were ''nowhere near it'' compared with recent Games.
''If you look at football teams, cricket teams, basketball teams, they all go through this type of phase,'' Nugent said.
To make matters worse, the three long course world records held by Australians entering the London Games have all been broken.
However, some among the Australian team were able to look on the bright side after Magnussen's surprise silver medal.
To his coach Brant Best, Magnussen's swim was anything but a failure. In fact, Best believes the 21-year-old's effort of bouncing back from a relay flop to come within one one-hundredth of a second proves he's a ''true champion''.
''You've got a kid who's under a lot of pressure, comes out and swims a relay and gives everything for his country and feels like he's let a lot of people down,'' Best said.
''And he stands up three days later and is able to do that.
Magnussen seemed have the advantage going to the wall but Adrian, who is 3cm taller at 198cm, got the better touch in a race that was decided by just about that much.
But the Port Macquarie Missile did not think his touch had cost him the race.
"I think I got a pretty good touch," he said.
"I think maybe thanks to a pretty good touch the closeness of the race was a little bit flattering.
"When you lose by that much you look back and think what could I have done better. I have no regrets."
However he has had a tumultuous week after a poor start in the 4 X 100m freestyle relay, followed by a salvage mission that very nearly brought him back to the top.
He confessed after the relay that he had not slept for two nights before that race, and admitted to more sleepless nights in the lead-up to his individual race.
"I don't know if you can notice but my eyes are pretty bloodshot," he said.
"I haven't had a great deal of sleep. I did my best but it wasn't as quick as trials, but it's a different ball game here."
He admitted that his expectations had soared to an unmanageable level before the Games, after he had completed a perfect preparation for the first time in his career.
"I guess the hardest thing for me is that going into major meets I've always been sick or something's gone wrong so I felt the pressure was always off a little bit," he said.
"But coming into these Olympics I had the perfect preparation and I was so confident I was going to swim really fast, that I think I just put too much pressure on myself."
"So I'll learn from that. I've still got a couple of races to come this week and I've just got to keep my chin up now."
The report has Copyrights from http://www.theaustralian.com.au
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