2021 BRITISH SWIMMING INVITATION MEET
- Friday, March 12th – Sunday, March 14th
- Manchester Aquatic Center
- LCM (50m)
- Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap
- Live Results
- Live Stream
The 2021 British Swimming Invitation Meet ended on a high note, as some of the nation’s most talented freestylers duked it out in the 200m distance.
Taking the elite meet title in the event was World Championships relay gold medalist Duncan Scott, with the University of Stirling star cranking out a winning effort of 1:46.70.
Opening in 51.63 and closing in 55.07, Scott got the edge over runner-up Tom Dean, the new Bath team member who snagged the 200m free silver tonight only .05 behind in 1:46.75.
It was James Guy who had the quickest front speed of the pack, posting a first 100m mark of 51.58 before backing off a bit to collect bronze in 1:47.47.
This trio of Scott, Guy and Dean represent 3 of the 4 fastest British men of all-time in the 200m free, with retired swimmer Robbie Renwick as the final foursome. Scott owns the national record in 1:44.91 from the 2019 FINA World Championships, while Guy’s mark of 1:45.14 renders him as the 2nd-best Brit en route to his winning the 2015 World Championships title. Finally, Dean owns a PB of 1:46.03 from last year’s Edinburgh International Swim Meet.
All told, the top 6 swimmers were all under the 1:50 threshold in the 200m free this evening, with Scott and Dean ranking #9 and #10 in the world this season.
2020-2021 LCM Men 200 Free
Dean
1:44.22
| 2 | Duncan Scott | GBR | 1:44.26 | 07/27 |
| 3 | Hwang Sunwoo | KOR | 1:44.62 | 07/25 |
| 4 | Katsuo Matsumoto | JPN | 1:44.65 | 04/05 |
| 5 | Fernando Scheffer | BRA | 1:44.66 | 07/27 |
| 6 | David Popovici | ROU | 1:44.68 | 07/27 |
| 7 | Kieran Smith | USA | 1:44.74 | 07/28 |
| 8 | Martin Malyutin | RUS | 1:44.79 | 05/21 |
| 9 | Alexander Graham | AUS | 1:45.22 | 06/13 |
| 10 | Danas Rapsys | LTU | 1:45.32 | 07/25 |
| 11 | Kyle Chalmers | AUS | 1:45.48 | 06/13 |
| 12 | Ivan Girev | RUS | 1:45.49 | 04/05 |
| 13 | Elijah Winnington | AUS | 1:45.55 | 06/13 |
| 14 | Townley Haas | USA | 1:45.66 | 06/15 |
| 15 | Thomas Neill | AUS | 1:45.70 | 06/13 |
The women’s 100m free saw Anna Hopkin get to the wall first in a time of 54.44, sneaking to the time pad just .07 ahead of two-time European Short Course Championships gold medalist Freya Anderson. Anderson settled for silver in 54.51, while Lucy Hope represented the only other sub-55 second swimmer in a time of 54.94.
Max Litchfield grabbed the men’s 400m IM gold in a mark of 4:16.74 while Harriet Jones proved the speediest in the women’s 100m fly in 59.33.
Additional winners included James Wilby nabbing the 200m breast victory in 2:11.24 (Adam Peaty scratched), as Luke Greenbank, the newly-minted British national record holder in the 200m back, collected 100m back gold tonight in 54.56.
Earlier we reported on Kathleen Dawson‘s eye-catching swim in the 200m back where the Stirling star posted a career-best and Scottish national record of 2:09.44. You can read the post here.
Another good evening. 4×2 looks very strong; Scott, Dean & Guy will catch the headlines, but Jarvis was eye-catching. We’re so used to seeing him plod along looking heavy and swimming 1.51s in Jan, Feb & March, so 1.49 is very encouraging. His first sub 1.50 in the first quarter of the year since 2015. Richards, Kurle and the Litchfields will keep them honest come trials. Nice to see Sarah Vasey getting back on track too – Her 100 went MIA for a couple of years there.
The 4x 200 mens free is going to be one of the hottest race at the Olympics.
The times in the men’s 200FS were solid, nothing more. A 1.46.7 isn’t spectacular when four swimmers have already been 1.45, including two Australians. You also have three Russians who have been low/mid 1.46. The Americans have enormous depth and in an Olympic year you can expect a number of them to step up. In the 4X200 at the last WC’s GBR finished behind Australia, Russia, the USA and Italy. On the evidence so far I can’t see them moving up more than one place. But overall this is shaping up to be GBR’s strongest Olympic team in a long time, if not its strongest ever.
I’d say wait and judge GB by their 200 showing at trials in a month’s time if you’re being fair. Russians and Aussies set their times at higher level State/National champs, and arguably have not had the same level of disruption as here in the UK with lockdowns.
Agree the latest WCs are most relevant, but I disagree with your assessment that their elevation is capped at one place. If you went by the last 3 WCs you’d be writing US off conpletely for Gold, but you haven’t done that, so have some consistency.
Agree it will be a stellar GB team tho.
As far as I’m aware Winnington and Graham were fully rested and these guys aren’t.
I’m not sure about Graham, but I’m pretty sure St Peters Western tapered, so that would apply to Winnington. The Russians were also more than likely tapered, as those times were set at Russian Champs.
A 53.0 from Greenback would make GBR extremely tough to beat. Even fighting through wake from other teams Peaty can outsplit every breaststroker from the other contenders by at least 1.5 seconds. After that Guy and Scott wouldn’t need to split much better than their flat start times to put together a 3:27 (I refuse to use Scott’s 46.1 split as a benchmark for him until its a repeat occurrence)
How do you get to 3:27?
57 (Peaty) + 53 (Greenbank) + 51 (Guy) + 48 (Scott) -> 3:29
Even if Peaty is 2 seconds faster than the american guy and Greenbank swims 53, the US should still win rather comfortably:
59 + 52 (Murphy) + 49.5 (Dressel) -> The US will be in the lead before the last leg and Held/Rooney/Pieroni/Apple have all been faster recently than Scott.
As a point of reference, peaty is 56. Flat start. Guy is 50. Flat start. That’s how you’d get 3:27
Scott is 47 Flat Start.
Yeah if you add a Greenbank 53.0 to the other three best flat start times you get 3:28:4, so 3:27 doesn’t seem unrealistic based on that: if you take Peaty’s 56.6 split, Guy 50.5 (their bests), then you only need Scott to match his best flat start time to get sub 3:28, and while the 46.1 could be an outlier, 47-low is surely fairly likely (he’s been that a few times).
Of course, this is subject to Greenbank getting to that 53-low range, and the other three swimming well.
The comment was about how they could get to 3:27 even if they don’t swim much faster than their flat start times. Guy has been 51.6 at the last worlds and i think Scott’s PB in the 100 free is something like 47.8, so if you assume 51.0 for Guy and 48.0 for Scott it is already 0.4 seconds faster than their recent combined flat start times (if you assume that Guy won’t get back to his best).
If you assume 57 for Peaty (which is faster than both his relay splits at the last worlds) and 53 for Greenbank (which is faster than his PB), Guy and Scott need to be faster than 1:38 combined. A possibility might be… Read more »
Or you need Scott to split somewhere near what he split at Worlds, which was 46.1 and a full 1.4 seconds faster than you’ve projected him…
Yeah, not sure what that has to do with the original comment though … ?
His PB is around 47.8 (if i remember correctly), so 46.1 would be far faster than his flat start time and we can’t “use” his 46.1 split to get to 3:27. I think something like 47.5 would qualify as “not much better than his flat start time”, so you would have to a time in that range to get to 3:27.
It’s like you’re ignoring the fact that they were 3:28.10 at Worlds in 2019, as you said, with a 21-year old Greenbank and Peaty splitting slower than his flat-start times.
Why are you ignoring this fact?
I am not ignoring it, but the assumption was that they could get to that time with Guy and Scott not swimming much faster than their flat start times. At worlds Guy split 50.8 (while his flat start time was 51.6) and Scott split 46.1 (while his flat start PB is something like 47.8), so at least Scott’s split clearly doesn’t qualify as “not much better than his flat start time” and Guy’s split only qulifies is you use his PB (from roughly 4 years ago) as reference.
1) Cool .. still Peaty split 57.20 and 57.73 at the last worlds. Did he not go full speed on purpose? He certainly can go faster, but people should stop acting as if it is a given that he will outsplit the american guy by 2 seconds or more. I think 56.5 is definitely possible for him, not sure how much faster he will realistically go (I am not saying that he can’t split faster than 56.5, but the question should be what we can realistically expect from him (not relying on a once in a lifetime swim like Scott had in 2019)). In the end his split doesn’t even matter, what matters is his split compared to the split… Read more »
Again your just twisting things to prove your point. Your using Peatys split times rather than his flat because that is slower and your using Scott and Guys Flats rather than their splits because they are slower. Just twisting your point once again to try and look right when you are making it up. Guy went 50. On that same relay and Scott 46. But you are ignoring them because its not the point you want to make. Say you talk on fact but you are the most bias person on this website.
Jimmy guy has never not been 50 in a relay, AnEn you haven’t got a clue buddy, if Jimmy guy can go 51.71 NOW in heavy training not rested, not shaven, I can Garuntee you now he is going 50. In a relay this summer
Nope, you either didn’t follow the discussion or you have some kind of brain malfunction. The whole discussion was about GB being able to go 3:27 with Guy (and Scott) not being much faster than his flat start time. Now the question is what flat start time you use as reference. At the last worlds he was at 51.6 and at his best he was at 50.6. If he again will be in the same shape as in 2019, i wouldn’t really call a sub 51 split “not much faster than his flat start time (51.6)”, but if he gets back to his best from 2017, then something like 50.5 would qualify as “not much better than his flat start… Read more »
1) There is no way of judging who is the most “bias” (thanks for the laugh!) person on this website and if there would be a way to do it, you certainly wouldn’t be the one who would be entrusted with making that judgement.
2) I am not twisting anything. My point is that it doesn’t make sense to 100 % assume that Peaty will be faster in the relay than in his individual swims. If it would be a given, then he wouldn’t have been slower in both his relay swims at the last worlds. In addition to that the original comment was about GB being able to swim 3:27 with Scott and Guy not being much faster… Read more »
In fairness Guy did split 50.xx in both relays, so I wouldn’t be that shocked if he split 50.5 or something similar in Tokyo…
Me neither, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that someone claimed that GB could go 3:27 with him not going much faster than his flat start time. In 2019 his flat start time was 51.6, so you have to use that time as reference and it doesn’t matter what kind of splits he had. The only other option would be that the reference was his PB from 2017 and then something like 50.5 would qualify as “not much better than his flat start time”. Then you would still have the problem that Scott’s best flat start time is something like 47.8 from a couple of years ago and you can’t just use his 46.1 split to get to… Read more »
Why can’t Peaty just swim the 200 for once? It’s not like it’ll destroy his training and I think everyone wants to see what he could do.
If he really focused his training more towards the 200, he’d probably easily go 2:07 low (he went 2:08 a few years ago). But, at his current build, I think he is far too be able to psychologically sustain his power output for a 200. As the BR times are getting faster, there appears to be increasing specialization between the two distances. Plus, building breaststroke endurance is a different animal from other strokes; it’s much easier to start by having a good 200 LCM and building down to the 100 LCM rather than the other way around (see Chupkov).
I wouldn’t bet on it, but there is a decent chance the US doesn’t medal in the 4×200. GB, Australia, Italy, and Russia all probably have as good of a shot to be on the podium as the US. China could be a dark horse depending on Sun’s eligibility and if they can find one more decent 200 freestyler–in 2019 they were heavily weighed down by having to use Xu who can’t do much than a 1:48-1:49, yet they still finished 6th with Sun dropping a below average split by his standards.
4x200m – Scott, Dean, Guy for sure, with Richards, Litchfield and Jervis fighting it out? Maybe Kurle too but can’t see anyone else in the mix.
Do you mean Jarvis? Jervis will probably have hands full with 400-1500. Also both Litchfields are potential swimmers – Joe didn’t swim final but went 1:49 this morning.
haha yes I did – easy mistake!
Jarvis & Kurle looked a lot better than they usually do at this time of year. Kurle is obviously in a new set-up, so you could put it down to that, but Jarvis was very encouraging. That was his first swim sub 1.50 in the first quarter of the year since 2015.
The podium is a lot faster than top 3 at San Antonio……by a lot!
Not surprising. Scott/Guy/Dean is probably a better trio than what the Americans have right now – Haas/Seliskar/Pieroni?
more proven but the US pool is a lot deeper.. e.g. no big shock if Kieran Smith goes 1:44 in a few months. I will be surprised if the US isn’t back on top this summer (in the 4×200)
Yes, the US would absolutely win a 8×200 relay.
Smith could go 1:44, but we have learned that 1:44s are pretty rare these days. Really only Sun and Rapys going that consistently from a flat start.
I wouldn’t say Rasys goes 1:44 consistently.
Actually Australia would do well in a 8×200 relay. Chalmers, Horton, Lewis, Winnington, Graham, Neill, Fraser-Holmes and one other.
No shock? Maybe not to you, but certainly to people who judge swimmers based on their actual performances. Also who cares about the depth, when only the top 4 guys swim in a final?
1) So far Smith has given no indication that he can swim that time
2) If you wouldn’t be surprised about him going 1:44, you probably also wouldnt be surprised about someone like Hwang (who is younger and already faster) going 1:43?
AnEn – happy to agree with you on this one! Smith has not shown the ability to go 1:44 yet. But he also hasn’t swim that event in LCM in awhile so I can see why people have it as a possibility…
It definitely is possible that he swims 1:44 (maybe even already this year) and wins a medal at the olympics (maybe even gold), but if you just look at the facts, there is no reason to think that he is the one swimmer who will go sub 1:45 next or that he has to be considered one of the favorites for a medal.
Anyone else read this headline and get excited then remember Mr. Farris isn’t British
Close, but he’s swimming for Ireland, remember?
I thought he swam for Harvard.
Anyone know why Anderson was relatively flat here and last month too? Or just one of those things?
Greenbank needs to up his speed on the first 50 pleaseeeee
The Bath swimmers were looked hit & miss across the board.