Litchfield lowers British Record on day four

Litchfield (City of Sheffield) posted a time of 1:56.64 and comfortably secured himself a lane in tonight’s semi-finals in the Duna Arena after finishing third fastest and will be joined by teammate Mark Szaranek (Edinburgh University) who qualified in 13^th on his world’s debut.

Following the race Litchfield explained: “Going in there I didn’t really know what to expect as I hadn’t raced yet, it was just a case of getting in there and hitting that one hard and I’m back tonight.

“Breaking the British Record this morning is good but I’m just looking forward to getting back in tonight.

“I’ve had to wait three days to start competing but watching everyone else swim so well really does spur the whole team on.”

Georgia Davies (Loughborough University) went in her second individual event of the World Championships, the Women’s 50m Backstroke and she will be back in action this evening qualifying fourth fastest.

Duncan Scott (University of Stirling) lined up in his preferred 100m Freestyle event and a strong heats swim from him meant he was the fifth fastest qualifier and will be back in action tonight.

“It was quite a tough heats swim this morning off the back of last night but I’m just happy to be through to the next round,” said Scott

“It’s obviously really close, it always has been and always will be in the 100m Freestyle. It’s a really close event and the semis will be the same. No-one will be backing off.”

The Women’s 200m Butterfly saw Alys Thomas (Swansea Aquatics) deliver a strong, controlled race to progress through to the semi-finals 13^th fastest.

“That was an alright time but I think I’m going to go back and see where I can squeeze a bit more time off it,” Thomas said.

The final event of the morning was the Mixed 4x100m Medley relay and the British quartet was made up of the Georgia Davies, James Guy, Ross Murdoch and worlds debutant Freya Anderson.