THE Olympic agony goes on for Max Litchfield.

The 29-year-old from Pontefract endured yet another heartbreaking finish in a final, touching the wall fourth on the biggest stage of all for a third time.

On a night of high drama at the La Defense Arena as Adam Peaty sought to win the 100m breaststroke for a third Olympic Games running, and in front of a raucous French crowd cheering on home favourite Leon Marchand, the Yorkshireman touched the line in a time of 4:08.85 in the 400m individual medley, a British record.

It means the wait goes on for the nearly-man of the Great Britain aquatics team, for whom swimming has been the salvation over the last two years.

NOT QUITE: Max Litchfield contemplates what might have been after finishing outside the medals again at the Olympics in the Men's 400m Individual Medley Final at the Paris La Defense Arena. Picture: Martin Rickett/PA

Litchfield was a surprise-fourth place finisher in the 400m IM in Rio eight years ago, but replicating that position at the delayed Tokyo Games was far more agonising as he missed out by just a fraction of a second.

Since then he has been on a journey of soul-searching, taking in training camps in Italy and South Africa as he recovered from personal difficulties he had not wished to go into prior to these, his third Games, through which his love of swimming sustained him.

“100 per cent no, from minute one it was a matter of when I’m ready to get back I’m going to get back and that’s what we did,” Litchfield told The Yorkshire Post ahead of heading out to Paris.

Reaching a third Olympic final marked a crescendo that has been building for months, which began with a first medal on the global stage, a silver, at the world championships in Doha.

XXXXXX: Max Litchfield during the men's 400 individual medley at the Paris La Defense Arena. Picture: Martin Rickett/PA

That Marchand - who dominated last night’s Olympic 400m IM - wasn’t there, mattered little to Litchfield who had finally got the monkey off his back.

He backed it up with victory at the British Championships and Olympic trials in a national-record time.

It was all supposed to end in a first Olympic medal.

He showed a sign of his form by finishing second to Marchand in the heats on Sunday morning in a time of 4.09:51, 1.21 seconds adrift behind the 22-year-old French superstar.

“There was only one goal this morning, to make that final,” he said. "The atmosphere is nice, I pretended they were cheering for me. I could hear them during that breaststroke leg.

“In the final I’ll look to execute my race plan now and see what we get."

Which will make this latest setback all the more galling for Litchfield - who started out at Doncaster Dartes and moved on to City of Sheffield before progressing to Loughborough University.

He was fifth after the butterfly leg, brought it back after the backstroke and had rose to second before the final 50m of freestyle before falling away.

His brother Joe, who has joined Max at an Olympics for a second time, contests the 100m butterfly later this week.

After City of Sheffield’s Yasmin Harper won a bronze medal with Scarlett Mew Jensen in diving’s 3m synchro and Anna Henderson a silver in the women’s road race time-trial, Team GB were waiting on Peaty to deliver their first gold medal of the Games last night.

Paris 2024: Pontefract's Max Litchfield forced to endure more Olympics heartache in the pool