Double Olympic Champion Rebecca Adlington (Nova Centurion) dominated her first final of the British Gas Scottish Nationals 2009 as she swam to the gold medal and put herself in contention for selection for the World Championships.
In order to put themselves within contention for selection for the Rome World Championships athletes either had to win at the British Championships, which took place in Sheffield in March, or achieve the second fastest time over the two events.
World record holder, Adlington, looked in control of the women’s 200m Freestyle from the beginning of the race and she turned with a one second lead for the final 100m.
At the final turn Adlington had a lead of two seconds and she touched home in a time of 1:57.15 just over half a second quicker than Caitlin McClatchey’s time from Sheffield and now is contention for selection for Rome in this event.
“I knew that it was going to be a challenging race so obviously I'm delighted to have come through,” Adlington said.
“I just wanted to swim well enough to guarantee a relay place though. I won’t race the 200 in the worlds I don't think - 800 is still my best event and I want to concentrate on that.
“But the 4 x 200 is such a fun relay and with the strength in depth we have I know we are going to be challenging at the Worlds.”
The battle for second place was fought out between Jazmin Carlin, McClatchey and Hannah Miley. It was down to the final 50m and it was Carlin (Swansea Performance) that took the silver medal in 1:58.34.
McClatchey (Loughborough ITC) won bronze with a time of 1:58.49.
Olympic finalist Gemma Spofforth showed good form in this morning’s heats of the women’s 50m Backstroke as she lowered the British record to 27.99.
As she prepared for the final she looked confident and she got off to a good start. Portsmouth’s Spofforth moved into the lead at 25m and pushed on to extend it and finished in 28.03.
“It's good to get the British record back of course,” Spofforth said. “I wanted to go faster again in the final today but I guess I just wasn't so focussed this afternoon. It's better to have a great field like that so it's a shame I didn't take the chance.
“But, saying that, obviously I'm really happy to come out on top of a world class field - the work I've been putting in, in the USA has really helped me. But my ultimate aim is the world record - I want to get that at the World Championships. I am still to qualify but obviously I'm riding high on confidence at the moment so we'll see how it goes.”
Loughborough ITC’s Elizabeth Simmonds and Swansea Performance’s Georgia Davies shared the silver medal after swimming stroke for stroke and touching in 28.82.
Jemma Lowe (Swansea Performance) carved out an early lead in the women’s 100m Butterfly and took her gold medal with a two second margin.
Lowe, who returned to the UK from America to compete at the event, turned in the lead and looked to challenge Fran Halsall’s qualifying time for Rome.
The Olympian touched in a time of 58.41 and just missed Halsall’s time by 0.30 seconds.
“I'm really disappointed with how I swam,” Lowe said. “I trained well all week for the event but I just didn’t perform on the day. I was slow in qualifying but I thought I would improve a lot in the semi but I didn't.
“Even though I won the race it was outside the time I was looking for to qualify for the British relay team.
“Lots of things went wrong - for a start my suit ripped down one side and after that I was always struggling to make a good time.
“I've been away training in Florida and the facilities are amazing but it's always great to come home and compete against other Brits.”
The fight for silver was close but it was Jessica Sylvester (Nova Centurion) in a time of 1:00.37 Edinburgh University’s Louise Pate took bronze in 1:00.50.
European record holder Hannah Miley took her first Scottish title of the competition with a promising swim in the women’s 400m Individual Medley.
Miley lay in third place at the 200m mark but showed her strength in the breaststroke leg and clawed back some of the distance. She held a five second lead going into the final 100m.
The Olympian finished in 4:39.55 to win the gold medal. Stephanie Proud (Chester le Street) won silver with a time of 4:44.16 and Emma Smithurst (City of Manchester) took bronze in 4:45.94.
“This is the second part of the trials for the World Championships and it is cool to have it here,” Miley said.
“It is good to have such a big event in Glasgow and I hope it will encourage more people into the pool and the atmosphere has been great here.
“I wasn’t all out in that race. I do have a lot of races and I need to pace myself however it wasn’t easy but it was a solid swim.”
