Gemma Spofforth and Chris Walker dominate their swims at the 2011 British Gas Swimming Championships
Gemma Spofforth, the current world backstroke champion, beat Lizzie Simmonds in preliminary rounds of the 100 m backstroke today at the 2011 British Gas Swimming Championships held at the Manchester Aquatics Centre. Spofforth, after her victory over Simmonds
is now the fastest swimmer to qualify for the backstroke semi-finals.
The North Sea swimmer was very relaxed after a superb swim of 1:01.75 against her competitor. During the race, Simmonds was not too far behind and found herself in a neck-to-neck race. She managed to finish just after Spofforth in a time of 1:01.98 followed
by Georgia Davies in the third place. Whereas, two times Olympian swimmer, Katy Sexton touched the wall in 10th place.
Spofforth, the silver medalist at the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, while expressing her commitment to further enhancing performance said, "It was just about blowing away the cobwebs this morning. There's more to come tonight. I haven't had any big races
in a while so it's nice to get in and race again."
On the other hand, in the men’s 100 m backstroke, Chris Walker-Hebborn comfortably made his way to the semi-finals ahead of Liam Tancock.
In the 1500 m freestyle heats, Cassie Patten presented a wonderful swim of 16:33.95 in the final race, which brought her victory over Danielle Hall-Jackson. Whereas, her team member Kerry-Anne Payne, who won a bronze medal in the 400 m freestyle yesterday
was able to manage a time of 16:58.06 for third place.
Kate Haywood created her spot for the 2011 World Championships as she won the 100 m breast-stroke heat in the fastest time. Haywood, who just made a comeback to her country after a training camp with breast-stroke champion, Liesel Jones in Australia, registered
a time of 1:10.41. She will be accompanied by two teenagers in the breast-stroke semi-finals as Siobhan-Marie O'Connor and Ruta Meilutyte qualified for second and third place respectively.
Later on, in the men’s 200 m freestyle, Joshua Walsh touched the wall fastest in 1:50.21 ahead of 400 m freestyle champion Robbie Renwick. They were followed by Ross Davenport in the third place whereas, Commonwealth bronze medalist, David Carry ended up
in seventh.
Tags: