Among the dozens of records broken over the 5-day European Short Course Championships in Netanya, Israel, Great Britain’s Christopher Walker-Hebborn (CWH) scored a new mark in the men’s 50m backstroke.
En route to the silver medal behind Poland’s Tomasz Polewka, CWH touched in a time of 23.09 to shave the smallest of margins off of Great Britain’s previous national record of 23.10 held by Liam Tancock since 2009. Tonight’s race was extremely close as well, as CWH actually tied Italy’s Simone Sabbioni for the silver, with both swimmers touching simultaneously.
Coming into the meet, CWH’s best time was 23.31 and he earned a time right about that (23.35) in prelims of the race. So with this 23.09 mark, CWH sliced .16 of a second off of his career-best on his way to achieving his silver medal achievement tonight.
CWH added this silver to his bronze already earned this meet in the men’s 100m backstroke. Although no British Record in that race, the 25-year-old did swim his best time ever, touching in 50.35 to stand on the podium.
All told, the British squad raced their way to a total of 2 golds, 7 silvers and 2 bronze medals in Netanya, Israel. Great Britain as a country finished in 7th place overall in the team standings at the meet.