Jackson Storms to World Record

Olympic bronze medallist Joanne Jackson broke the women’s 400m Freestyle world record on her way to victory on the first day of competition at the British Gas Swimming Championships 2009.

The new British champion was pushed all the way to her gold medal by double Olympic Champion Rebecca Adlington. Both athletes looked strong in their heats and went into the final hungry for success.

The girls were swimming stroke for stroke throughout the race and it wasn’t until the final 100m when Jackson began to put some space between her and Adlington.

The final 25m saw Jackson pull five metres ahead of Adlington and Jackson touched home to rapturous applause as she set a new world record with a time of 4:00.66. She also secured her place on the World Championship squad for Rome.

“It hasn’t really sunk in yet,” Jackson said. “Becky normally gets me on the last 25m and this time I just thought to myself just kick and see what you can do. So I put my head down and fought for it. I was just in shock when I saw that time.

“My dad is here today and I am really happy he got to see that. I am pleased with the World Championship place. Dave [Davies] had got his just before me and I just didn’t want to let my coach Kev [Renshaw] down. So I was happy to have secured my place.”

Adlington took the silver medal, after also swimming under the old world record time, and finished in a time of 4:00.89.

“It was just a fantastic race to be part of,” Adlington said. “For both of us to go under the world record is an amazing achievement. We pushed each other all the way but Jo got the better of me on this one but I am really happy for her.”

Bronze went to Swansea Performance’s Jazmin Carlin in a time of 4:06.19.

City of Sunderland’s Eleni Papadopoulos performed well to take the gold medal in the Multi-Disability women’s 100m Butterfly. She touched home in a new British record time of 1:13.13 and took a total of 836 points.

Swansea Performance’s Stephanie Millward took the silver with a time of 1:11.96 and 798 points while bronze went to Rachael Latham (City of Sheffield) with a time of 1:21.96 and 669 points.

The women’s 100m Backstroke semi-final saw Lizzie Simmonds (Loughborough University) qualify fastest for the final tomorrow she secured a time of 1:02.47. Her closest competitor for the final is Georgia Davies (Swansea Performance) who swam to a time of 1:03.06 followed closely by Zoe Hester (Plymouth Leander) with a time of 1:03.11.