The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Scott claims more medals in pool at European Championships –
Swimmer hails home support after following up individual silver
Great Britain enjoyed a brilliant night in the pool as they won two gold medals at swimming’s European Championships in Glasgow.
Georgia Davies clinched the women’s 50metre backstroke title before the men’s 4 x 200 freestyle relay team finished the evening with a brilliant win.
Duncan Scott, who was part of the relay team alongside Calum Jarvis, Thomas Dean and James Guy, also won an individual silver, while home favourite Ross Murdoch was among those who qualified for a final.
It was a stunning performance from the men’s team, with Scott and Guy in particular producing stunning legs to see them mark a new championship record of 7 minutes 05.32 seconds and beat Russia to the top of the podium.
“It was really good,” the 21-year-old former Strathallan School pupil admitted with his gold medal around his neck. “The 100m free, it was really good to progress with each round and to top it off with the 4 x 200m was amazing.”
The men’s gold was GB’s third in the pool already at Tollcross, and a sixth overall following further success at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, and Scott was pleased to give the home crowd further reason to celebrate.
“You can sense the atmosphere and feel the noise, if that’s possible,” he said. “Walking out was incredible with the crowd behind us.
“The atmosphere has been great over the last couple of nights and it’s great that the crowd is getting behind the British athletes. It’s been amazing and we have had another really good night of swimming for Team GB.
“Last night (Saturday) we had some unbelievable swims and to back that up with this was really good.”
Davies kicked things off earlier in the day by pipping Anastasiia Fesikova by 0.08 seconds in the backstroke on her return to the Glasgow pool where she won Commonwealth gold four years ago and she has put her victory down to experience.
She said: “I have so many fond memories from here, I think it’s all the home comforts and the home crowds.
“I didn’t mind about the time tonight, I just wanted to win and I’m so pleased I managed to.
“Mentally I’m becoming more calm and relaxed when it comes to racing and trying to enjoy myself more.
“I still get nervous when I race, but I used to let those nerves hinder my performance and now I’m trying my hardest not to, and I think that has come with age.”
Adam Peaty’s 100m breaststroke world record – set on Saturday – has been adjusted due to a problem with the timing mechanism, the European Swimming Federation announced.
The Uttoxeter 23-year-old recorded a time of exactly 57 seconds in his final in Glasgow. But it will now go into the record books as 57.10 after officials revealed a “configuration delay” of 0.10 seconds affecting the first nine races of the session.
The revised time has no effect on his achievement in the Tollcross pool, given the new mark still eclipses his previous best of 57.13secs set in the Olympic final in Rio in 2016.
The second world record set in the session, in which Russia’s Kliment Kolesnikov eclipsed Liam Tancock’s previous best 50m backstroke time by 0.04 seconds, is unaffected by the changes.
Perth City’s Stephen Milne was part of the Great Britain team that picked up a bronze medal in the inaugural 4x200m freestyle mixed relay.
Milne joined Craig McLean, Kathryn Greenslade and Freya Anderson to finished behind Russia and gold medallists Germany in 7:29.72.