The British Swimming Championships kick off in earnest on Tuesday 16th April at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre, with some hotly anticipated clashes set to take place over the course of the six days of action.
If you can’t make it up to Glasgow, swimming fans can catch all the action live on the British Swimming Facebook and YouTube channels, so you needn’t miss a single race.
One of the first of the big finals is a showdown between some of the world’s best breaststrokers, as the crowd will be treated to the Men’s 100m Breaststroke final on the opening night. Adam Peaty will start as favourite having set a world record in this very pool last summer to take the European title. James Wilby also produced a fine swim back in August, winning silver and moving to fifth on the all-time world rankings, whilst also likely to be in the mix on Tuesday night are local heroes Ross Murdoch and Craig Benson.
The other headline event on day one of action is the Women’s 400m Individual Medley, which will see Aimee Willmott and Hannah Miley go head to head once more, after winning gold and silver respectively at the Commonwealth Games a year ago. The latter has been on the comeback from ankle surgery at the end of last summer, whilst Loughborough’s Abbie Wood will also hope to be in the shake-up.
After a truly breakout season in 2018 that included a Commonwealth title on the Gold Coast and a European medal, fly specialist Alys Thomas will be back in the water hungry for more success and goes in the Women’s 200m Butterfly on day three of the championships.
World medallist Ben Proud is another one to watch in the Men’s 50m Freestyle on Saturday evening, whilst the Women’s 50m backstroke will also conclude that night. The penultimate day of the championships will see European champion Georgia Davies start as favourite in the aforementioned event, a title she claimed in the Glasgow pool the last time the British Champs visited this venue back in 2015.
The Men’s 200m Freestyle will be the event to bring to the curtain down on six action packed days at Tollcross, with an expected head-to-head the fitting end to the meet. University of Stirling-based Duncan Scott, who claimed his first senior international gold for Great Britain will go toe to toe with 2015 world champion James Guy, the Bath National Centre swimmer, like Scott, picking up a sack full of international medals in 2018. Don’t discount Tom Dean though, the young Bath swimmer will be hoping to continue his excellent progress into the senior ranks.
Ahead of the meet National Performance Director Chris Spice:
“We’re very excited ahead of the 2019 event, which is set to be a great week of racing. We haven’t had a full British Champs since 2017, due to the timing of the Commonwealth Games last year, so everyone is looking forward to seeing what our swimmers can offer.”
The meet doubles up as a selection meet for the World Championships in Gwangju as well as the European Juniors, European Youth Olympic Festival, World Juniors and World University Games.
For live results please click here and to tune into the live stream click here.
A limited number of tickets are still available on the door at the venue.