The penultimate night of finals brought sprint and medley fireworks to the London Aquatic Centre as three more qualification standards for this summer’s World Championships were achieved.
The men’s 50 freestyle turned into a proper shoot out for the only place available to join the preselected Ben Proud on Singapore. Jacob Mills had boosted himself up to number 6 all time GB performer, tied with Mark Foster, with a 21.96 blast in the heats and came through again in the evening with 21.99 for the runners up spot. Proud was irresistible though and duly won his 7th British title in this event. Mills now has to wait to see if he’ll get the chance to swim this event in Singapore but it looks quite likely he’ll get the nod.
The women’s 200IM turned out to be a two way shoot out between Abbie Wood and Katie Shanahan. Wood ultimately took the spoils with a win in a lifetime best of 2:08.85, inside the worlds qualifying time. Behind her, Shanahan finished fast after giving the Loughborough swimmer a bit of a lead by 150, and also dipped under the qualification standard with 2:09.88.
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There were second titles for Greg Butler in the 200m breaststroke and Keanna MacInnes in the 100m butterfly but neither was able to make certain of their spots in those events as they both fell shy of the qualification times. Both swimmers are already on the plane though and may get the chance to swim these events in the summer.
Meanwhile the men’s 800 freestyle Tyler Melbourne-Smith dipped Uber 8 minutes for the win, posting 7:58.68.
A full selection update after Day 5 is available below. Note this is only our interpretation of how the policy will be applied and final selections need to be confirmed by the selectors in due course.
Banner image: David Damjanovic/European Aquatics.