NOT even the reprisal of the Tollcross Tumult could have the desired effect last night. At the same venue where Scottish swimmers claimed medal after medal at the Commonwealth Games two years ago, a busy and boisterous Glasgow crowd did their best to rouse their local favourites to faster swims and quicker times. Come the end of the fifth and penultimate night of these British championships, however, and there would be no tangible reward for their throat-rasping efforts. Despite a few close things, Hannah Miley remains the only Scot guaranteed a place in the squad for this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio, although a few more could yet join her, either by winning one of the final events of the week tonight or through the back door later in the week.
Four Scots were on the starting block for the men’s 200 individual medley final but none would finish in the top two in a race won by Roberto Pavoni. Best-placed in third was Duncan Scott, fresh from his success in the 100m freestyle earlier in the week and one of the Sunday Herald’s Six to Follow to Rio. The 18 year-old University of Stirling student will have a further chance to qualify automatically in the 200m freestyle this evening and declared himself satisfied with a bronze medal and another personal best of 1:59:88.
“I was quite happy with that,” said Scott. “I wanted to get down to 1:58 and challenge the two percent [margin for consideration]. So I’m disappointed with the time but it was a PB so it’s going in the right direction. That was the aim coming in, being in the ballpark. But now it’s how I perform [tonight]. The team’s taking shape now and I want to be a part of it.”
Edinburgh University’s Mark Szaranek, the fastest qualifier in the heats, finished fourth, with Warrender’s Dan Wallace sixth and Lewis Smith of Stirling University eighth in what was his final ever race.
Stephen Milne will be among those sitting nervously by the phone until Thursday to see if second place in the 1500m freestyle final will be deemed worthy by the selectors of a seat on the plane to Rio. Milne – the Scottish record holder at this distance – had started out strongly and led after the first turn but once Loughborough’s Tim Shuttleworth had established a two-second gap it seemed unlikely he would relinquish it. Alas for the Perth City swimmer, that proved to be the case. Consolation for Milne came in the form of his time – 14:59:10 – that was within the requisite 2 percent margin of the qualifying standard which may see him join Shuttleworth in the team.
“It was a tough race,” conceded the 21 year-old. “Hats off to Tim, it was tremendous from him. I did my best and it’s over with and I’ll just focus on the 200m now [tonight]. I’ll need to wait and see what they do for selection.”
An otherwise productive few days ended on a disappointing note for Camilla Hattersley. The City of Glasgow swimmer had claimed a silver medal in the 800m freestyle earlier in the week and had high hopes going into the 400m version of the event. On this occasion, however, the race got away from her and she ended up finishing in fourth place with a time of 4:12:04 behind winner Jazz Carlin who booked her place at the Olympics.
“I’m really disappointed with that,” said the Glasgow University student. “I thought I would go a lot faster. I didn’t have any expectations as such going into the race but I just wanted to produce a best time. I wanted to try to get up there in the medals. Overall I’m really happy with how it’s gone for me this week. I’ve had three out of four PBs so I can’t really complain.”
Hattersley could yet earn a pick to be part of the Team GB relay teams which, she admits, would be a decent consolation prize. “Making the Olympics even just in the relays would still be a dream come true. We’ll see what happens.”
There was a now almost-expected strong performance from Miley who took silver in the women’s 200 individual medley behind Siobhan O’Connor whose time of 2:09:66 was within Olympic consideration. Emily Jones of Edinburgh University finished fifth.
In the last race of the night, the men’s 50m freestyle, Jack Thorpe from Edinburgh University finished sixth behind Ben Proud, another who can now start to think about Rio. The Scots could only look on with envy.
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