European Junior Champs – Day 1

An encouraging showing on the first day of the European Junior Championships in Linz, Austria, with British swimmers making 6 final swims in the first 10 Events and winning two medals

Kate Haywood was the undoubted star of the first day in British terms. Having qualified easily from the heats of the 50m Breastroke in 4th, she then set the fastest time in the semis. Swimming from lane 4, she was always the swimmer to beat and won the gold medal in 32.54, a result that sets her up nicely for the longer 100m event.

The girls 4×200 free team had raised hopes of a medal of the championships with a time of 8.24.24 to qualify in third place for the final, more than 5s clear of the 4th qualifier. They maintained this position in the final, holding off the Hubnagrian Squad by just .013s to win the bronze medal.

The next highest place finish of the day came in the girls 400IM where both Julia Preston and Laura Chase had qualified for the final, albeit in 7th and 8th. Both girls raise their game, and Preston came out of the race in 4th place, agonisingly only 0.8s away from the bronze medal position. Chase also improved her position finishing the race in 7th. In the boys race, Ross Hughes of Brentwood came in eighth in the final.

Paul Webster led the boys challenge with a strong swim to 6th place in the 200 free, in a time of 1:53.36, David Davies having just failed to make the final.

Elsewhere Julia Beckett swam well to record 11th place in the semi finals of the girls 100m free, but Joanne Jackson unfortunately failed to live up to her number two ranking in the 200 fly, coming in 10th to just miss a final spot.