Ben Proud continued his Rio preparations with a useful tune up at the Seven Hills meet in Rome over the weekend. The Plymouth swimmer took a strong gold in the 50m freestyle, with a swim of 22.08. That was enough to hold off European 100m champions Luca Dotto who finished second and Japan’s Shinji Shioura in third. Proud’s winning time was 0.01 faster than he recorded in the heats at the Foro Italico pool. He also recorded a 50.14 heat in the 100m freestyle but scratched the 50m butterfly.

Rome also saw squads from Loughborough and Birmingham competing. From them, Adam Barrett could also have been finalising his Olympic preparations in Rome but it was not to be. Instead he posted 50.14 in the 100 free heats but went much better the fly events, taking bronze in both the 50m and 100m events in 23.80 and 52.91 respectively. Luke Davies was 8th in the final of the 200m breaststroke in 2:15.45, a feat matched by in the 50m breaststroke by Andrew Weatheritt in 28.05. Meanwhile Joe Elwood made the B final of 50m backstroke.

The pick of the ladies’ results was a win in the 200m breaststroke B final from Loughborough’s Jocelyn Ulyett who posted a 2:28.97, just off her lifetime best set earlier this year at Britain’s Olympic trials. Ulyett also made the B final of the 100m breaststroke, while earlier in the meet her teammate Beth Aitchison had finished 8th in the A final of the 50m breaststroke event in 32.15. Aitchison also recorded a B final appearance in the 200IM, coming home second.

Full results are available here