2019 LEICESTER OPEN
- Friday, November 14th – Sunday, November 16th
- Braunstone Leisure Centre
- SCM
- SwimSwam Preview
- Results
The 2019 Leicester Open took place over the weekend, with the likes of elite medalists James Wilby and Molly Renshaw racing alongside some of Great Britain’s rising talents such as Edward Mildred and Betsy Wizard.
For Wilby’s part, the 200m breast Commonwealth Games gold medalist from last year threw down the hammer here in both that event, as well as the 100m sprint to top the podium twice. The 26-year-old Loughborough athlete produced a winning time of 59.98 to represent the only sub-minute swimmer in the 100m, while he followed that up with a 2:14.45 top mark in the 200m breast.
Renshaw also completed the 100m/200m breaststroke double, hitting the wall first in the sprint with a time of 1:06.84, while she convincingly won the longer distance by almost 10 seconds in a gold medal-worthy effort of 2:23.81.
For the Northampton duo of Wizard and Mildred, the teammates wreaked havoc across several events over the course of the 3-day affair, with 16-year-old Wizard leading the way with 5 individual victories.
The teen put up a winning 200m IM time of 2:13.37 in the morning heats, following with a final time of 2:14.48 to take the event by almost 7 seconds. That outing checks-in as her personal best and also inserts Wizard into the list of all-time British performers at 16 years of age on the day of competition.
Wizard was also successful in the 100m free, clocking 56.26, followed by the 200m free where she produced the only sub-2:00 time of the field in 1:58.93. The 100m fly and 400m IM events also fell victim to Wizard, with the Northampton teen reaping top times of 1:01.11 and 4:46.04, respectively.
As for Mildred, the 16-year-old European Junior Championships finalist topped both the men’s 100m and 200m butterfly podiums, producing winning times of 54.23 and 1:59.20. Those outings were in range of his lifetime best marks produced earlier this month at Midlands, where Mildred entered the top 5 British performers’ ever list for his age with times of 53.10 and 1:58.38.
Olympic finalist Max Litchfield made an appearance in that 100m fly race, finishing behind Mildred in a time of 54.59. Litchfield had earlier topped the men’s 400m IM in a time of 4:14.08, as well as the 200m free in a mark of 1:47.80.
Additional winners included Leicester’s William Bell winning the men’s 200m IM in 2:04.40, while Maisie Elliott came on strong in the 20om fly to win by 3 seconds in a mark of 2:16.40.
Litchfield and Wilby are part of Great Britain’s squad heading to Glasgow for this year’s European Short Course Championships slated for December 4th-8th.