An Ethiopian Olympic swimmer took his place in the 100m heats but only managed to finish half a lap behind everyone else.

Robel Kiros Habte, from Ethiopia, was swimming in the Preliminary Men's 100m Freestyle heats at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium.

Of the 59 competitors across the eight heats, the 24-year-old swimmer was ranked 59th with a time of 1 minute 4.95 seconds.

Kyle Chalmers, from Australia, finished on top of the heat rounds with an astounding time of 47.9 seconds.

A total of 16 swimmers qualified to move on to the next round. 

Twitter users took to the social network to comment on the tubby athlete.

Harold Siyaya wrote: 'How in the world did this Ethiopian swimmer (Robel Habte) qualify for the Olympics? 

'Overweight & embarrassingly slow.' 

Jai Bednall said: 'First cheer at the Rio2016 pool goes to Ethiopia's Robel Habte. Not quite Eric the Eel but close.'

The Ethiopian Olympic team has sent 35 competitors to the games in Rio but has not yet won any medals.

The lackluster performance compares poorly with the US's hope for gold on Wednesday night when Adrian Nathan takes to the Olympic stage in the 100 meters freestyle final.

Adrian finished first in Tuesday night's 100m freestyle semi finals with a time of 47.83 seconds, compared with Habte's heat time of 1 minute 4.59 seconds.  

Habte is 5ft 9 tall and 179lbs, compared with the US's best freestyle hope Nathan Adrian who is 6ft 6 and weighs 220lbs.