British athletes Steph Slater, Jon Fox and Nicole Lough set the pace on the opening day of the 2014 British Para-Swimming International Meet in Glasgow.
In the 100m Freestyle S8 swimmer Steph Slater took silver in 1:07.33 (926 points). Slater finished one second behind gold medallist, USA’s Jessica Long (S8, 1:06.38, 966) and ahead of Summer Ashley Mortimer from the Netherlands (S10, 1:02.53, 890 points) in bronze.
"The 100m Free isn’t my strongest event so I’m really happy to get the silver and the European qualification time"
- Steph Slater
Slater, who was within the GBR qualification time for the IPC Swimming European Championships said: “I’m really pleased. The 100m Free isn’t my strongest event so I’m really happy to get the silver and the European qualification time.
“It’s always nice to be able to race Jess [Long] and it would have been nice to be in the lane next to her so I could have given her a good race. But I did my own race and stuck to my own race plan and I’ve got a medal out of it so I’m really happy.”
Bournemouth College’s Alice Tai set a British S10 100m Freestyle Record after finishing in 1:04.91 to touch first in the Youth final.
Also within the qualification time for the 100m Freestyle was S6 swimmer Ellie Simmonds with 1:16.71 (874 points). Behind Simmonds were S9 swimmers Amy Marren (1:03.90) and Steph Millward (1:04.63) and S7 swimmer Susie Rodgers (1:12.85).
In the men’s 100m Freestyle Jon Fox (S7) took bronze with a swim of 1:03.46 to give him 860 points.
Fox finished behind City of Manchester Aquatics’ team mate Phelipe Rodrigues who took silver with 871 points and Jose Mari Alcaraz who took gold with 904 points.
"My coach told me to go for it and think of having just one chance to qualify, which is what I did"
- Nicole Lough
SB14 swimmer Nicole Lough (City of Sunderland) sliced more than a second off her British record to finish in 1:18.91in the women’s 100m Breaststroke heat. While she couldn’t quite replicate the time in the final, Lough took bronze in 1:19.96 (888 points).
Lough said: “That was really tough because I wanted to get another PB but I was having problems with the catch and my legs.
“It was a good race in the 50m and I tried to hold it but it wasn’t happening. But I was under the qualifying time which was good. My coach told me to just go for it and think of having just one chance to qualify, which is what I did.”
Bethany Firth (SB14), who will be eligible to compete for Great Britain from August 2014, completed a great swim to take gold with 991 points (1:17.07), in front of the Netherlands’ Magda Toeters who took silver (901 points, 1:19.56).
Claire Cashmore (SB8, 1:21.50) and Charlotte Henshaw (SB6, 1:41.43) also swam under their European qualification times.
In the men’s 100m Breaststroke Scott Quin also swam under the SB14 qualifying time with a 1:09.50 swim.
A delighted Quin said: “I’m over the moon. This morning’s swim was off the pace but I spoke to my coach after the heat and she told me what to do and this evening’s swim was much better. I’d have liked to have gone quicker but I got the time and that was the goal.”