Tai takes down another world record at Tollcross

28 Apr 2019

Fresh from a world record swim last night, Alice Tai returned to the Tollcross International Swimming Centre to achieve the same feat in the freestyle.

The Women’s MC 50m Freestyle heats got the final morning of action underway and Tai wasn’t messing around as she had her foot on the accelerator all the way to the wall. Touching in 29.66, Tai was just outside her personal best set as an S9, but now swimming as an S8 she secured 1007 points and a place in the history books.

The delighted Ealing swimmer said afterwards:

“I’m really happy with that. My start was a little bit off, so my first thought when I dived in was ‘I’ve screwed this up’ but then after about 30m I just really digged in and I was biting my bottom lip! It was 0.03 off my PB from 2014 so I couldn’t be happier.

“Last time I swam this event I was pretty close [to the world record] but my freestyle has been a little bit off in training, but I thought, you know what, it would just be nice to get in there and come away with that world record!”

Tai also headed the qualifying for the Women’s MC 100m Butterfly thanks to a 1.09.33 swim, securing her 951 points. The stand out swim though came from young Scot Toni Shaw, the S9 breaking both the Scottish and British records with a brilliant 1.08.07 effort, which was also inside the British Para-Swimming consideration time for the World Championships.

Commenting afterwards Shaw said:

“I’m so relieved. All I wanted to do was go under the qualifying time, but to get a second PB I’m really happy. I was really nervous going into it this morning but I’m definitely looking forward to it a lot more tonight!”

Jessica-Jayne Applegate was also in good form as she touched in 1.06.24 to also surpass 900 points.

The Men’s MC 100m Butterfly saw two new British records as both Reece Dunn and Stephen Clegg went inside their respective London 2019 consideration times by huge margins. S14 Dunn took the win, finishing in 58.74, but his 853 point tally only put him fourth on the list of qualifiers. Topping that list was S12 Clegg, who went one hundredth quicker than his existing British record, to amass 943 points.

The Men’s MC 50m Freestyle saw Japanese star Takayuki Suzuki advance to the final with the most points, the S4 swimmer continuing his fine form this week. The Men’s MC 50m Backstroke qualifying also went to script, Arnost Petracek of the Czech Republic scoring 845 points, with Andrew Mullen qualifying second with 763.

Full results from Glasgow are available on British Swimming’s website here and you can catch all the action on the live stream, which resumes at 4.30pm, via Facebook or the British Swimming YouTube channel.

Tickets are still available at the venue in Glasgow.