Siobhan sails through on penultimate morning of Glasgow 2019

7 Dec 2019

Siobhan-Marie O’Connor qualified quickest for tonight’s 200m Individual Medley final with an impressive swim, as the Brits enjoyed another good morning at Tollcross.

Completing what she referred to as a ‘dirty double’, O’Connor firstly qualified for the Women’s 100m Butterfly final with a solid swim, before a 10 minute turnaround saw her back in action in her favoured medley event.

After just missing a medal in the 100m IM last night, the Dave Hemmings coached swimmer was optimistic for her favoured 200m event today and rightly so, as she showed her rivals a clean pair of heels in the penultimate heat to eventually top the leader board.

“It was a bit of a dirty double this morning, with the 100 Fly first and I thought I had quite a bit longer in between races but I nearly missed the 200 Medley! That was good though – I just wanted to race tough this morning. It was all about getting through this morning, so job done.”

Luckily for O’Connor the 200m Individual Medley final comes before the 100m Butterfly semi-final this evening.

Returning to the water after winning gold in the Women’s 100m Freestyle last night, Freya Anderson looked equally comfortable over double the distance as she controlled her heat, but in a rare occurrence was tied first with German Isabel Marie Gose. None-the-less she safely advanced to the final tonight, where with each of the top eight swimming 1.55, it is going to be a great contest.

18 year old Anderson said afterwards:

“That was nice and chilled after last night and it was just about getting back in the pool again. I took it out pretty easy but still managed to get through, which was obviously the goal.”

The European champion was back in the water shortly after to play her part in another successful Great Britain relay performance, joining forces with Scott McLay, James Guy and Anna Hopkin in the Mixed 4x50m Freestyle Relay. Sending McLay and Guy off first gave Hopkin and Anderson clean water to do their thing, bringing the team home first in the second of two heats.

Returning for tonight’s final, McLay concluded:

“It’s been a busy morning for me as I had 50 Fly first and then straight into the 100m Free, which I think compromised my 100m Free a little bit, but it’s been a great week of racing and I was just happy to go in first for these guys and it was a great relay. We’ve just got to do the same thing tonight now, attack it and just focus on the process. If we can try and go quicker than we did this morning then we’ll just have to see – hopefully it’ll be good enough for a medal.”

Duncan Scott showed no sign of slowing down despite his busy programme, contesting another two events this morning. First off was the Men’s 100m Freestyle, the European Short Course silver medallist finishing second in his heat, just 0.01 outside his personal best, to qualify third fastest.

Back in the pool half an hour later, Scott was one of four Brits in action in the Men’s 100m Individual Medley, with he and the man in the lane inside him, Joe Litchfield, booking spots in tonight’s semi-final. Scott touched second in heat three of five, with Litchfield producing yet another personal best to take third. Glasgow 2019 medallists Tom Dean and Max Litchfield were also in action but only two Brits could advance to the next round.

A medallist in the 100m already this week, Georgia Davies made light work of advancing into the semi-finals of the Women’s 50m Backstroke, however Laura Stephens missed out in the 100m Butterfly by just one place.

Full results can be found here

Tickets for the remainder of the European Short Course Swimming Championships can be still be purchased here (limited availability for some sessions), with live streaming of Saturday's finals session available via the the BBC Sport website (5pm) and BBC Red button (5.25pm).