Abbie Wood was the standout performer on the penultimate night of swimming in London as she carved a huge chunk off her 200IM best time to confirm an individual spot for her at the Euros.
It was all action elsewhere, as swimmers jostled to get their names to the forefront of selectors minds with both England and Scotland in the position of having more swimmers with nomination times than they have spaces. A full update is below.
Note this is only our interpretation of how the policies will be applied and final selections need to be confirmed by the relevant selectors in due course.
Britain
Abbie Wood’s victory in the 200IM was achieved in 2:08.17 – a big improvement on her lifetime best which moved her up to 15 on the global all time performers list and was easily enough to make the qualification time for Paris. Freya Colbert in second was also within the cut off for this event.
The other Paris qualifiers were Filip Nowacki and Greg Butler in the 200 breaststroke. Nowacki a winning time of 2:08.52 was perhaps slower than expected given his performances in the shorter events but it was more than good enough to make the grade and pulled Butler to an lifetime best of 2:09.51.
England
Things are getting very tight for England as their roster swelled to 31 swimmers with nomination standards against a team size limit of 28, meaning some swimmers with the qualifying times will not be headed to Glasgow.
Wood was the only new woman on the potential team list, having missed out so far this week, while Colbert put herself under the 200IM standard also. On the men’s side Jacob Mills added the 50 free to his schedule, while Reece Grady did likewise with the 800 freestyle. Greg Butler was someone who gave themselves a great chance by swimming 2.04% under the 200 breaststroke nomination standard, while Christian Ryan as the second Englishman home will have to sit and hope – he was just 0.09% under.
Scotland
Scotland face a similar dilemma to England as the number of swimmers hitting the nomination standard continued to grow, reaching 27 against a team size of 25 and with several relays still to be decided, including the men’s 4×200 and medley relays which take selection priority.
The new name added on night 5 was Joshua Mitchell in the 200 breaststroke.
Wales
There were no new names put in the frame for Welsh selection on night 5, but Matt Richards improved his standing int eh 590m freetsyke, and Thoedora Taylor added herslef into the mix for the 12990IM. The torfaen swimmer how has nomination standards in 6 events and is part of 2 relay quartets.