Proud powers to world silver

At the start of Saturday evening’s finals at the World Aquatics Championships Arena, Ben Proud notched up his tenth consecutive major championships podium in Men's 50m Freestyle international finals – a streak stretching back to the 2021 Abu Dhabi World Aquatics Short Course Championships.

Having worked his way professionally through the rounds, Proud assumed his place on the blocks in lane seven for the medal contest in Singapore and got away from the gun with a brilliant start and underwater phase.

The Paris 2024 Olympic silver medallist hit the front of the field as the swimmers broke out and got up into their stroke – holding that position for much of the sprint showdown, with Cameron McEvoy of Australia only just appearing to have enough swim speed to pip Proud into the wall over the closing metres.

“Yeah, I feel fantastic,” said Proud

“I think coming into tonight, really there was no expectations to do anything. It was just how good can I feel and how good of a race can I execute - so diving in and having that sensation of moving through the water, it felt fantastic and to get the hand on the wall second was excellent for myself.”

Comparing his latest world championship medal to those achieved previously in his career, Proud added:

“I mean they're all equally great, but I think I think there's been many swims where I've come on the podium at a world champs and I’ve not been satisfied with myself, whereas I really feel like I had to earn my way through the rounds and I think I put in a race tonight that there's not really much I could have improved on. So that's something that I can leave here as I take a bit of a break from swimming for a little while [over the summer] and be very content with the execution of that.”

In the respective Women’s event, Eva Okaro had qualified an outside lane draw for her 50m Freestyle semi-final on Saturday evening.

Getting away well in the evening session the 18-year-old came into the wall among a blanket finish to touch not far outside her lifetime best and place 11th overall.

Great Britain’s action concluded on day seven on the swimming programme with Oliver Morgan in the Men’s 50m Backstroke.

A quick morning swim had secured the University of Birmingham man a central lane for his semi-final, but he was just edged out from being part of another individual world final by 0.11 seconds on this occasion – ranking 10th in the event summary.

“It’s one of those I’ll need to take a look back and see what there is [to improve], but I’ll focus now on the relays which will be fun,” said Morgan.

“It’s definitely difficult managing getting through the rounds – it’s my first world’s doing all three rounds of the 100m so I just struggled a bit on the 200m, but I’m happy enough with that [in the 50m] as it was quick this morning even if it wasn’t the perfect swim tonight to just miss out.”

Stream live free-to-air coverage of the World Aquatics Championships 2025 taking place in Singapore at www.aquaticsgb.com/live.

Saturday 2nd August Swimming results

• Men’s 50m Freestyle: Ben Proud – SILVER
• Women’s 50m Freestyle: Eva Okaro – 11th overall
• Men’s 50m Backstroke: Oliver Morgan – 10th overall, Jonathon Marshall – 37th overall
• Mixed 4x100m Freestyle: Jacob Whittle, Jacob Mills, Freya Anderson and Eva Okaro – 12th overall

Extended results available on the World Aquatics website here.