In a week packed with national championships across the world, Great Britain vaulted itself into the spotlight with a number of gigantic swims on day 1, including James Guy shattering the national 400 free mark and Michael Jamieson further lowering his world-leading 200 breaststroke time.
Aimee Willmott started things off in the open age category by crushing the 400 IM field. Though Willmott was still two seconds off her season-best (which has ranked #1 in the world since January), she beat this field by almost 7 seconds with Scotland’s Hannah Miley, Willmott’s UK rival, scratching the race.
The next event was the men’s 400 free, where Guy went off on the championship heat with a 3:45.15 just getting under David Davies’ national record of 3:45.24. Guy won the event by two seconds and now ranks fourth on the 2014 world list.
Olympic breaststroker Siobhan-Marie O’Connor took off with the 200 free, going 1:56.59 to top Jazz Carlin by almost 1.5 seconds. That time helps O’Connor leap from 16th in the world rankings to 3rd overall:
2014 LCM Women 200 Free TYR World Ranking
SJOSTROM
1.55.04
| 2 | Katie LEDECKY | USA | 1.55.16 | 08/07 |
| 3 | Femke HEEMSKERK | NED | 1.55.35 | 12/12 |
| 4 | Emma McKEON | AUS | 1.55.57 | 07/24 |
| 5 | Federica PELLEGRINI | ITA | 1.55.69 | 04/11 |
Already leading the world in the 200 breast, Olympic silver medalist Michael Jamieson put some more distance between he and number-two Christian Sprenger, going 2:07.79 to win the championship final. Jamieson now leads the Aussie by nine-tenths, and he won this race by 1.7 seconds over Adam Peaty.
2014 LCM Men 200 Breast TYR World Ranking
MURDOCH
2.07.30
| 2 | Marco KOCH | GER | 2.07.47 | 08/21 |
| 3 | Dmitry BALANDIN | KAZ | 2.07.67 | 09/23 |
| 4 | Michael JAMIESON | GBR | 2.07.79 | 04/10 |
| 5 | Kevin CORDES | USA | 2.07.86 | 08/07 |
A number of semi-finals also went off on night 1. Here are some highlights:
- Young star Sophie Taylor went 31.41 to lead the women’s 50 breast. She sits two tenths up on Sarah Vasey.
- British record-holder Ben Proud sits convincingly atop the men’s 50 fly. His 23.49 is a half-second up on the field and three tenths off his Brit record.
- Fran Halsall beat out O’Connor for the top 100 fly seed by a single hundredth of a second, going 58.33 to O’Connor’s 58.34.
- In the men’s 100 back, Chris Walker-Hebborn stole the top seed from British record-holder Liam Tancock. Walker-Hebbort went 54.01 to Tancock’s 54.67.
In addition, there were four “junior” events swum at the beginning and end of the session:
- Emma Cain went 4:51.91 to win the girls 400 IM, a time that would have placed 7th in the open age group event.
- Daniel Jervis touched out Martyn Walton to win the boys 400 free. Jervis went 3:56.43 to Walton’s 3:56.56.
- At the end of the session, Mari Davies put up a 2:02.40 to win the girls 200 free, topping Georgina Boyle by just .3.
- Night 1 finals closed with Jack Burton‘s 2:17.22 win in the boys 200 breast. Charlie Atwood was second in 2:18.88.
On top of all that, one multi-class Paralympics event was swum, the men’s 100 free. Parlympic gold medalist and world record-holder Josef Craig topped the combined field in British Disability Points, putting up a 1:01.29 to head the field. Matthew Wylie took second, swimming a 58.69. Craig competes in Category S7, while Wylie swims in S9, which is why the times produce different amounts of points.
Day 1 finals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYeJHtZ_YCg
If O’Connor is doing that in the 200 free, her 200 IM should be nasty.
Wow…. I am very surprised with siobahn’s 200 free. She will definitely give trouble to mckeon in 200 free and to Coutts in 200 IM. She has kept improving every year, and GBR will have a new star in Kazan and Rio.
Matt Wylie (S9) from the City of Sunderland programme actually broke the British Record in the Heats and then again in the final.Matt took the Gold and the National title as this was not a MC event. Training partner Josef Craig (City of Sunderland ASC) lowered his PB also in the Men’s 100m Fs final to finish 4th Both men now move onto the IPC Euopean Championship Trials in a little over a weeks time.
Halsall has a PR of 57.4 from 2010 in the 100fly, she has dramatically improved in all her other events. You’d think she’d be a 56 by now, which in this day and age is enough to win a medal (a lot more easily than her other events, might I add)
Horton has shown himself to be quite a championship performer. McKeon, on the other hand, has not. Though, judging from his performance, McKeon looks like he could go a lot faster if he changes his race strategth.
She’ll need those improvements soon, some very classy looking young ‘fly swimmers appearing in Britain – Atkinson, Kelly & O’Connor born 96, 94 & 95 are all within range of Halsall now (58.3-58.6) and rapidly improving.
Siobhan-Marie O’Connor is an absolute superstar in the making. This young lady doesn’t have a weakness. Her power to weight ratio must be ridiculous. Looks like I was wrong in hanging gold & silver around the necks of Barratt & McKeon for Glasgow. James Guy was superb, I stick to my guns that he and Mack Horton will cause McKeon some troubles in Glasgow. If selected, I expect Nick Grainger to get towards 3.45 too, three second PB and he has had a back injury recently. Great night for GB overall – 4 of the 5 men sub 3.50 in the 400m were 1994/1995 births and had a combined PB improvement of around 13 seconds today, are our men finally… Read more »