Paralympic champion Jessica-Jane Applegate sliced more than a second off her personal best to secure gold on the final day of the 2015 British Para-Swimming International Meet in Glasgow.
UEA Norwich swimmer Applegate was out in front from the start and swam a well paced race to duck under the IPC Swimming World Championship selection time in the MC 200m Freestyle.
The S14 swimmer came home in 2:07.33 to take the title on 967 points ahead of Norway’s S5 swimmer Sarah Louise Rung (2:54.62, 838 points) and British S14 teammate Chloe Davies (Swansea Aquatics) who touched in 2:14.03 for 829 points.
“I’m really ecstatic,” Applegate said. “I had loads of technical goals from the heats and I’ve just gone over my swim again and there is so much more to work on.
“I’m really looking forward to the summer, I can’t wait to get my head down and train hard. It’s really difficult to be out there on your own because when you’re next to someone, you know what sort of pace they are doing. So it was hard to go out on my own and I knew if I picked it up for the final 50m I would have a chance.”
Tom Hamer (City of Manchester Aquatics/National Performance Centre, Manchester) swam to silver in the men’s MC 200m Freestyle in a day where he dipped under the two minute mark twice.
The S14 Commonwealth silver medallist swam fastest in this evening’s finals where he clocked a new British record time of 1:58.92.
“I am pretty chuffed tonight,” Hamer said. “I am so pleased with myself. I’m also happy I went faster in the final because that’s what it’s there for.
“I’ve got a PB in every event even in finals. I’ve been working really hard in the National Performance Centre with Graeme and Rob and I need to keep it up now.
“I love this pool. I love the atmosphere and it holds really good memories.”
Hannah Russell (Woking / National Performance Centre, Manchester) won her fourth medal and second gold of the meet with a season’s best in the MC 400m Freestyle final.
The S12 swimmer clocked 4:42.96 for 942 points to take gold with Canada’s Aurelie Rivard (S10) coming home for silver in 4:40.88 (916 pts) and Loughborough University’s Ellie Simmonds (S6) joining her British teammate on the podium with bronze in 4:47.37 (855 pts).
Andrew Mullen also rounded off a successful meet with his second gold in as many nights.
The 18-year old, who won four European golds last summer, added to his MC 50m Butterfly gold from day three with victory in the MC 50m Backstroke, clocking 38.28 for 764 points.
Ollie Hynd (S8, Nova Centurion) won the gold medal in the men’s MC 400m Freestyle with a time of 4:31.03 and 946 points while Josef Craig (S8, City of Sunderland) won the silver with 883 and a time of 4:37.40.
National Performance Director Chris Furber commented: “It’s been a great competition in terms of organisation which is a testament to all of the hard work behind the scenes.
“From a performance perspective it has been a real mixed bag. There have been some really exceptional performances from Bethany [Firth], from Hannah [Russell] and the National Performance Centre guys have swum really well.
“Jessica-Jane [Applegate] has made a step forward and I thought that Scott Quin’s Breaststroke swim was really good. There were also swims where I think athletes need to go back to the drawing board and look back at their training.
“But on the whole the competition has been good. It has been how I expected to be honest and we saw our key athletes really step up at a big meet. We don’t have many opportunities to race under pressure and it’s good to have athletes that have been a bit fragile before become more resilient at this meet.”