Glasgow-born Andrew Mullen won silver in front of a home crowd as Great Britain landed six medals from six finals on the opening night of the Glasgow 2015 IPC Swimming World Championships at Tollcross.
The 20-year old was one of five silver medallists for the British Para-Swimming team on day one in Scotland as Ellie Simmonds, James Crisp, Scott Quin and Tully Kearney also finished second while Susie Rodgers was the other British medallist with bronze.
Mullen, who learned to swim at Tollcross, took the challenge to defending champion Daniel Dias in the S5 50m Backstroke final; the Brazilian having won the past two World and Paralympic crowns.
And while Mullen, who set a European record 37.29 in the heats, pushed Dias to one of the best times of his career, the Scot settled for silver on 37.68 behind the Brazilian’s Championship record 35.34.
And the young Brit admitted it had been a humbling experience to land a World Championship medal in his hometown pool.
“I feel in good form coming into this meet so to go a PB is a good way to start it off,” said Mullen, who trains at the National Performance Centre in Manchester.
“Hopefully I can carry that momentum on to some of my other events later this week.
“It’s very humbling winning a World medal where I first learned to swim and I’m really pleased to be able to do that in front of my friends and family.”
Simmonds faced an in-form rival in her S6 400m Freestyle final in the shape of Ukraine’s European 50m and 100m Freestyle champion Yelyzaveta Mereshko.
The Brit kept stroke for stroke with Mereshko throughout the final before the Ukranian edged narrowly clear in the final 20m.
And while Simmonds came home in 5:22.24, the second fastest time of her career behind her world record 5:19.17 at London 2012, Mereshko held off the Brit to take victory in 5:21.76.
“I gave the best that I could on the day to be honest,” said Simmonds.
“It was my best time since London 2012. It didn’t get me the gold medal today but you can’t always get it.
“I did everything that I could on the day and it just wasn’t good enough to win the gold medal.
“I’ve been a gold medallist in this event at every Championship since 2008 so it’s hard but I’m going to go back tomorrow and get ready for the 100m Breaststroke which is fun event and there’s no pressure on me at all.
“This might have knocked me back but I’m going to go out stronger for my other races this week.”
Crisp is no stranger to the IPC Swimming World Championship podium, having amassed 19 medals over the past five stagings of the event.
And the 32-year old celebrated his 20th medal with silver in a nail-biting S9 100m Backstroke final, hanging on to touch second in 1:05.12 behind Australia’s Brenden Hall (1:05.01) but ahead of Hungary’s Tamas Toth (1:05.24).
In contrast, 18-year old Kearney bagged just the second World prize of her young career as she took more than half a second off her personal best from the heats with a 1:10.52 effort in the S9 100m Backstroke final.
Warrender’s European silver medallist Quin won his first World medal as he claimed silver in his favourite SB14 100m Breaststroke.
The 24-year old touched joint second with Japan’s Paralympic champion and world record holder Yasuhiro Tanaka in 1:07.99 as the Netherlands’ Marc Evers took gold in 1:07.10.
Meanwhile, Rodgers claimed the sixth IPC Swimming World Championship medal of her career with S7 100m Freestyle bronze.
After turning fourth at the half-way stage, the Beckenham swimmer forged her way into the medal positions in the final 50m, ultimately touching in 1:13.10 to join USA’s Cortney Jordan (1:11.93) and Russia’s Ani Palian (1:12.98) on the podium.