James Guy demolished the British Record in the 400m Freestyle as he and Siobhan-Marie O’Connor both claimed silver medals to increase Great Britain’s haul to six at the FINA World Short-Course Swimming Championships in Doha.
James Guy demolished the British Record in the 400m Freestyle as he and Siobhan-Marie O’Connor both claimed silver medals to increase Great Britain’s haul to six at the FINA World Short-Course Swimming Championships in Doha.
Guy produced a staggering performance at the Hamad Aquatic Centre where he sliced close to four seconds off Robbie Renwick’s British Record with a time of 3:36.35.
O’Connor then clinched silver in the 100m Individual Medley to add to her second place as part of yesterday’s 4x50m Mixed Relay squad. The other British finalist – Jazz Carlin – was sixth in the 400m Freestyle.
Guy did not so much lower the British record, which had stood since 2008, as take a sledgehammer to it. In the heats he became the first British man under the 3:40 mark in 3:39.58 to qualify third for the final.
The Millfield swimmer – who turned 19 last Wednesday – then returned to the pool tonight to take off another three plus seconds en-route to silver.
Peter Berner claimed gold for Hungary and beat the championship record held by Australian great Grant Hackett since 1999.
Guy was beaming after the race, saying: “It just felt great. I’ve honestly never felt that fast – I am over the moon with that, I am just so happy.
“I could see Peter was in first and I thought ‘he’s gone, I’ll just do my own race’. My coach told me to try and build and build and build and that is what I did. It just felt great from there.
“It’s my first major short course and I’ve medalled so I’m over the moon.”
O’Connor had twice lowered her own British Record en-route to tonight’s 100m IM final for which she qualified in pole position.
While she could not replicate that in the final, the 19-year-old took a second silver of the meet behind Katinka Hosszu as the Hungarian won in a new World Record.
The Bath swimmer smiled: “I am really happy with that. This was just a bit of fun ahead of the 200IM which is my main event.”
Chris Walker-Hebborn lowered his personal best to 23.34 to qualify seventh for tomorrow’s 50m Backstroke final while Adam Barrett missed the 50m Butterfly final by one place.