Adam Peaty cemented his place as Britain’s most decorated World Championship swimmer with his second gold medal of the 2017 championships in Budapest as he successfully defended his 50m Breaststroke title.
Following his World Record swim in yesterday’s semi-final, Peaty
delivered the gold with another sub-26 second time – a 25.99 - to take the
title he first earned two years ago. Silver went to Brazil’s Joao Gomes Junior
in 26.52 and South African Cameron Van Der Burgh took the bronze in 26.60.
“That felt really, really good even though I slightly messed up a stroke,” said Peaty. “There’s definitely more in there somewhere but it will take a lot more hard work to make that happen. We’re only at the start of our four-year journey to Tokyo 2020.”
It now brings Peaty’s total return from two World Championships to five gold.
Britain went into the final of the 4x100m Mixed Medley Relay as reigning Champions but saw their own World Record taken out by the U.S. in the morning heats.
The quartet of Georgia Davies, Adam Peaty, James Guy and Siobhan-Marie O’Connor finished a tense and close final in fifth in a new European Record 3:41.56 – a time which would have beaten their previous World Record standard.
“I’m gutted I couldn’t get it at the finish but I knew that I’d be hunted down,” said O’Connor who swam the anchor leg. “I gave it everything and it’s just disappointing because I wanted to get a medal for the team.
“We’ve got such a strong team but that event is such a tricky, tactical event and I think we’re just still learning it. It’s still a relatively new event in the programme but the team is so strong and I know we’re only going to get better.”
Max Litchfield (City of Sheffield) set a new British and Commonwealth Record in the morning heats of the Men’s 200m Individual Medley finishing in 1:56.64. He went close again in his semi-final tonight qualifying third fastest in 1:56.70. Mark Szaranek (Edinburgh University) went in the same semi-final and ranked 11th overall.
“I had some great messages of support after this morning’s swim, my dad’s out here and I spoke to him but it was a case of switching off from it all and just getting ready for tonight,” said Litchfield.
“The tactic tonight was a case of doing the same thing as this morning and I pretty much did that. It felt good. We’re always trying to move forward and thankfully I can do that by putting the hard work in everyday and it’s paying off for us so I’m happy with that.”
- Max Litchfield
Day four of the World Championships also saw Georgia Davies (Loughborough University) set a new British Record as she won her semi-final of the Women’s 50m Backstroke. She touched in 27.49 and qualifies fourth fastest for tomorrow’s final.
Duncan Scott (University of Stirling) went in the semi-final of the Men’s 100m Freestyle and booked himself a place in tomorrow’s final with a controlled race and a second place finish.
“There’s no way I can be disappointed with that,” said Scott who qualified for the final in sixth place. “It’s a nice step forward from this morning which is what I wanted to do.
“Bring on the dog fight tomorrow. It might take a best time to take a medal - there’s some fast guys in there so you never know.”
- Duncan Scott
Alys Thomas, at her first World Championships, had secured a second swim when she made the semi-finals of the Women’s 200m Butterfly. She qualified in 14th but improved on her time tonight to finish 13th overall.
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