Saturday was the 4th and final day of the British ASA National Championships, which is staged as a second round of Olympic qualifying for swimmers from the the UK.
But there was only one race on the final day of this meet where an individual Olympic spot was up for grabs, and that was the men’s 100 free. There, Adam Brown took the win in 49.16, which left him three-tenths off of the Olympic Automatic Qualifying Standard. Grant Turner was just behind in 49.25.
Though they didn’t grab individual swims, but that should seal up their spot on the British 400 free relay time at the Olympics, along with Simon Burnett and James Disney-May. These swims were faster than either of those men went at March’s Trials. The British coaching staff will now also have a tough decision to make about who should anchor their medley relay between Brown and Burnett (who was a 49.33 in March, but will have a longer build without any rest for this meet a month out of the Games).
Though there were no new tickets booked into the Olympic Aquatic Center, there were still some great swims. That includes Aimee Willmott winning the women’s 400 IM in 4:38.68. That’s the third-best time in the career of a swimmer who left a huge stamp on March’s Trials when she took 2nd in this same event.
Other big wins include Jemma Lowe in 2:08.59 in the women’s 200 fly.
There was no follow-up to Friday’s awesome 800 free from Rebecca Adlington, but a pair of teenagers did swim sub-4:10 in this meet. That includes a 4:09.68 win from Lucy Ellis, a best-time by three seconds, and a 4:09.90 from Anne Bochmann.
Yikes!Only 49.16…it looks British Team will be fighting with Brazil B(yes, no Fratus and Cielo) for a spot in Olympic 4x100free relay final(I was thinking it was a DONE thing before…).