Stephen Parry took Britain’s first medal in the pool with a superb effort over 200m butterfly as he again improved his Commonwealth record on his way to the bronze medal. Meanwhile there was a British record for the men’s 4x200m freestyle team, but disappointment for Britain’s other swimmers who all failed to progress to their respective finals.
Parry had qualified fastest for the 200m final, having headed Michael Phelps in his semi final, and for much of the race was right on the American’s shoulder. Only in the last 25m did the big Liverpudlian start to tire and drop off the lead, also to be overtaken by Japanese swimmer Takashi Yamamoto. But Parry held on bravely, touching in 1:55.52 to knock a further 5 one hundredths of a second off his Commonwealth record.
In the final event of the night, the men’s 4x200m freestyle team pulled off an outstanding swim, reducing the British Record on their way to fourth place. The squad of Simon Burnett, Gavin Meadows, David O’Brien and Ross Davenport were agonisingly just 0.77s seconds behind the Italian team who took the bronze, but can be well pleased with the result, having entered the meet with few predicting even a finals place for them.
Unfortunately there was no such cheer for the British breaststrokers in the 200m event as Chris Cook struggled home in 16th place, well off his best time, and Ian Edmond was disqualified from 9th place for a dolphin kick. Georgina Lee also failed to live up to her potential in the 200m fly, finishing outside her heats time to just miss the final, coming home in 10th place.