Filip Nowacki highlighted the strength in depth of British breaststroke after winning the 200m title on the penultimate evening of the Aquatics GB Swimming Championships at the London Aquatic Centre.
Nowacki held off the challenge of defending champion Greg Butler to top the podium, after winning silver behind Adam Ramsay-Peaty over 50m and 100m earlier in the week. Nowacki and Butler both registered times under the European Championship qualifying standard.
Afterwards, Nowacki said:
“I’m absolutely ecstatic with that. It was a great swim from me and the other boys, and it was a real rush of emotions at the end. I could feel the pressure from Greg for the whole race, and I think it’s great to have that in this country – the depth is really building at the moment.
“I’d have to say I’d rate my week overall at 10/10. A couple of PBs, and couple of times just off a PB, and I’m on the team for Paris, which I’m really pleased about and was the main aim for this week.”
Earlier, Poppy Maskill had set the tone for another fantastic evening by breaking the S14 100m butterfly world record in the first race of the night, before Jacob Mills and Abbie Wood also claimed memorable victories.
Mills recorded a personal best to edge out Matt Richards over the men’s 50m freestyle, clocking 21.91. Gabriel Shepherd took bronze.
Mills said:
“I’m really happy. To come back after a disappointing result on Thursday night (100m freestyle), it’s good to come back and get another PB, so I was really pleased with that tonight. I’ve been doing more work on the 200m this year, so it’s a bit of a surprise to swim a PB, but really happy to put it all together.”
Wood also set a personal best time – 2:08.17 – to claim her third consecutive women’s 200m individual medley title, in a race where Freya Colbert (silver) also secured her place in Paris, and Amalie Smith (bronze) swam the qualifying time to put herself into consideration.
Wood said:
“I’m really shocked by that! I couldn’t see it at the end, so I was very shocked to hear the time at the end – but really happy. It’s been a really hard week – to have to wait until day five to even make it onto a team has left me quite on edge, but it’s taught me a good lesson and really made me stay headstrong.”
Earlier in the evening, Keanna Macinnes led a Scottish clean sweep of medals in the women’s 100m butterfly, with Ciara Schlosshan and Lucy Grieve completing the medal podium. Macinnes’ winning time of 57.57 was also a new Scottish national record.
After retaining her title, she said: “It’s so nice having the other girls there to push me on. I said at the start of the season that I really want to be on that Scottish 4x100m team come the summer, so I’ll have to keep proving myself throughout the year.”
Reece Grady was victorious in the men’s 800m freestyle, winning gold ahead of Luke Hornsey and Sean McCann, while Maskill, Matthew Redfern (men’s 50m freestyle) and Olivia Newman-Baronius (women’s 200m individual medley) won gold in the mixed classification events.
Maskill’s 1:01.52 in the 100m butterfly represented an S14 world record, and afterwards, she said:
“I didn’t feel amazing (before the race), but I just tried to focus and I managed to do that, so I’m really happy with that. It’s something to really build on – me and my coach were talking about how I can improve on the last part of the race, so it’s good to have something to target to go even faster.”
Bruce Dee also enjoyed another successful day, twice setting a new men’s S6 50m freestyle national record. Sascha Kindred’s previous record of 32.11 had stood since 2008, before Dee swam 31.83 in the heats, and lowered that mark further by clocking 31.45 in the final, in which he won bronze.
The final day of racing takes place tomorrow, with ten further National Champions to be crowned. Every A finals session from this year’s Aquatics GB Swimming Championships will be broadcast live from 7.45pm across BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app, as well as live coverage of heats (9.30am) and finals (6pm onwards) on the Aquatics GB YouTube channel.
The Aquatics GB social media channels will provide exclusive behind-the-scenes content throughout the meet - and you can still be in the London Aquatics Centre stands yourself, with limited tickets still available here.
Full results, start lists and schedules are available on the Swimming Results website.
Limited tickets are still available across the 2026 Aquatics GB Swimming Championships through SEE Tickets