Meilutyte Is Back, Throws Down 1:05.82 100 Breast In Edinburgh

2016 EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL SWIM MEET

• Dates: Friday, March 11th – Sunday, March 13th, 2016
• Prelims 8:30 am local (3:30 am EST/12:30 am PST)
• Finals 5:15 pm (12:15 pm EST/9:15 am PST)
• Meet Central
• Meet Preview
• Live Results

Today kicked off the 2016 Edinburgh International Swim Meet, where some of Britain’s best are putting the finishing touches on their race-tuning before their Trials in April. Additional key European athletes are also sprinkled into the mix of events on both the women’s and men’s sides to give us some terrific match-ups.

Lithuania’s Ruta Meilutyte traveled to Edinburgh with her Plymouth Leander teammates, making her post-broken elbow racing debut. Suffering the mishap last September, Meilutyte was first scheduled to swim at the Euro Meet in Luxembourg in January, but pulled out before competition began.

The extra rest proved potent for the 18-year-old, as Meilutyte threw down a monster 1:05.82 to easily take the women’s 100 breaststroke event. Splitting 30.40/35.42, the 2015 World Championship silver medalist topped the field by almost 2 seconds en route to clocking the world’s 2nd-fastest time of the season. Only Russia’s Yuliya Efimova has been faster (1:05.70) and the two European women represent the only sub-1:06 breaststrokers of 2016.

For Meilutyte, the outing points to what looks like a full recovery, as the 1:05.82 time is among her fastest of the past two years. Post-race, Meilutyte noted, “Representing Lithuania, I don’t have Trials but I know how important April is to my [Plymouth Leander] teammates.” She will also be contesting the women’s 50m breaststroke event later this meet.

University of Bath’s Siobhan-Marie O’Connor scored a successful 200m IM swim today, registering a time of 2:10.32 to take the gold and beat the field by almost a second. For O’Connor, her swim now sits as the 3rd-fastest time in the world this season and, although Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu has positioned herself as a heavy podium favorite headed into Rio, O’Connor’s consistency warrants adding the 21-year-old to the conversation as well.

O’Connor’s personal best in the event is the 2:08.21 she earned en route to gold at the 2014 Commonwealth Games and she followed that up with an impressive bronze medal in Kazan with her mark of 2:08.77.  With only Australia’s Alicia Coutts joining Hosszu as the only sub-2:10 swimmers of the season, O’Connor just needs to hit a good swim come British Trials to potentially set herself up for a podium-worthy swim in Rio.

O’Connor doubled up on her 200m IM victory by finishing first in the 100m butterfly, stopping the clock at 58.79, a time that ranks as the Bath swimmer’s 10th best of her career.

The men’s side also saw eye-catching action, primarily in the form of ever-improving Ben Proud‘s 100m freestyle performance. The British National Record Holder in the 50m event, Proud fired off a solid 48.52 100m today to win gold over University of Stirling’s 19-year-old workhorse Duncan Scott (49.69).

Proud’s result today clocks a personal best for the 22-year-old, representing just the 4th time he’s dipped beneath the 49-second threshold. 48.20 is the British National Record in the event, held by Simon Burnett since 2008’s Beijing Games. With Proud’s upward trajectory, the Plymouth Leander athlete is inching closer and closer, now just .32 of a seconds away.

After his race, Proud said “I really didn’t expect to be so tough or so fast.” Proud’s time sits just outside the world’s top 10, but justifies the Brit as ‘one to watch’ in the event, as he improves in both the 50m and the 100m virtually every time he swims.

Additional Winners on the Day:

• Stephen Milne, men’s 400m freestyle – 3:48.51
• Ranomi Kromowidjojo, women’s 50m freestyle – 25.65
• Adam Peaty, men’s 50m breaststroke – 27.66
• Max Litchfield, men’s 400m IM – 4:18.35
• Elizabeth Simmonds, women’s 200m backstroke – 2:10.17
• Luke Greenbank, men’s 200m backstroke – 2:00.03
• Camilla Hattersley, women’s 800m freestyle – 8:35.78