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Olympic Trials - Day 3 Finals & Heats

The morning finals on Day 3 of the GB Olympic Trials saw Warrender's Lewis Smith replicate his heat performance with a time of 2:04.59 that placed him 6th overall.  Lewis had been targeting a podium finish but he remains focussed on his best event, the 400m IM, on Thursday.

The evening heats turned out to be a great session for the Warrender club with an almost perfect streak of personal best times.  Sally Wood got things underway with a stunning performance in the Women's 200m IM.  Putting a difficult first half of the season well and truly behind her that had seen her miss several weeks of training due to a stress fracture of the back, Sally stormed to an early heat win with a time of 2:21.05.  This reduced her lifetime best set last summer by over two seconds and was fast enough for a place in tomorrow morning's 'B' final - the first time she has reached a final at GB senior level.  Rosie Hood was hot on Sally's heals in the following heat, reducing her best ever time by half a second to finish 19th overall in 2:22.56.

In what turned out to be by far the fastest Men's 200m Freestyle of all time in Britain, Ewan Johnston was very much up against it.  Targeting qualification for the European Junior Team, and swimming a very well paced race, Ewan stopped the clock in 1:53.83, a lifetime best by one second.  Such a time has made the GB team for every previous European Juniors in history but unfortunately for Ewan, the standard has moved on so much this year that despite doing a great swim he was only ranked 9th in the junior rankings and 31st overall.

It was three PB's out of three for Warrender in the Men's 200m Backstroke.  Ross Woolley got things underway by knocking five seconds off his previous best time finishing in 2:11.83.  In the next heat Craig McNally went even better, dropping from 2:15 to an incredible 2:09.23, and inside the Scottish Gold Squad standard for his age.  Finally, Billy Purnell benefitted from recent technique development on lengthening his stroke to place 10th overall in 2:04.36, securing a place in tomorrow's 'B' final and a half second best time.

In the Women's 50m Freestyle, Yasmin Khera continued her good form, knocking over half a second off her previous best to stop the clock at an impressive 28.24 for a 14 year old.  In later heats Fiona Booth swam 27.14, just missing a place in the 'B' final, as she did also in the 100m Breaststroke with a time of 1:13.15.