With points to prove, Ross Murdoch will race at the European Swimming Championships tonight with additional fuel on board. It may propel him to fresh heights. Following an Olympic trials in Glasgow last month that left him consumed by under-performance, he is producing evidence to back up his sense that it was an untimely blip.
The 22-year-old from Balloch will get the chance to add to his 100 metres backstroke silver from earlier this week when he goes into the 200m final as favourite after qualifying quickest from last night’s semi-finals in London.
With UK champion Andrew Willis suffering a shock exit in the heats, the Commonwealth gold medallist surged to victory in 2:09.72 with training partner Craig Benson just missing out in ninth overall place. And after losing out to his British rivals for a spot in his favourite event at Rio 2016, Murdoch will seek a certain redemption.
“It’s a bit bittersweet,” he said. “I came into this meeting with a few demons on my back after a few weeks ago. But I had a really good time out there. I would absolutely love to be swimming this in Rio but it’s about who swims it at major meets at the trials. Certainly I believe I’m in the best shape possible to swim it.”
Benson, who edged his Stirling University training partner into third at the trials, was just pipped for a final berth but his best, he claimed, is being saved for the Olympics.
“The heats took a lot more out of me than I thought,” he insisted. “I wanted to get up but I didn’t have anything more. I just did not have that extra gear and I guess that’s from hard training.”
After three days of the championships, the British medal tally now stands at eight after James Guy took bronze in the 200m freestyle and Chloe Tutton landed a surprise bronze in the 100m breaststroke which was won by world record holder Ruta Meilutyte.
Edinburgh hope Dan Wallace was eighth in the 200m medley final but Kathleen Dawson broke the Scottish record twice in one day by following up a sensational swim in the heats by reaching today’s 100m backstroke final with an effort of 59.83 seconds in the semi.
“I’m just glad to have broken the minute,” said the teen, who missed out on Olympic selection. “That was my aim coming in so I’m really happy. I’ve trained hard every session I’m in to make myself better all the time.”
Hannah Miley secured her spot in this evening’s 200m individual medley along side British team-mate Siobhan-Marie O’Connor with the third-fastest time in the semis to land a crack at adding to the 400m silver she landed three days ago.
“I’ll take that,” the Scot said. “It’s one of the events I tend to use as fun. But I have struggled with it.
Olympic trials winner Duncan Scott and Robbie Renwick are set to go in this morning’s 100m free heats with Stephen Milne starting his 800m free bid.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here