Guy’s Brit record 400 free, Jamieson’s world-leading 200 breast kick off British Gas Swimming Championships

In a week packed with national championships across the world, Great Britain vaulted itself into the spotlight with a number of gigantic swims on day 1, including James Guy shattering the national 400 free mark and Michael Jamieson further lowering his world-leading 200 breaststroke time.

Aimee Willmott started things off in the open age category by crushing the 400 IM field. Though Willmott was still two seconds off her season-best (which has ranked #1 in the world since January), she beat this field by almost 7 seconds with Scotland’s Hannah Miley, Willmott’s UK rival, scratching the race.

The next event was the men’s 400 free, where Guy went off on the championship heat with a 3:45.15 just getting under David Davies’ national record of 3:45.24. Guy won the event by two seconds and now ranks fourth on the 2014 world list.

Olympic breaststroker Siobhan-Marie O’Connor took off with the 200 free, going 1:56.59 to top Jazz Carlin by almost 1.5 seconds. That time helps O’Connor leap from 16th in the world rankings to 3rd overall:

Already leading the world in the 200 breast, Olympic silver medalist Michael Jamieson put some more distance between he and number-two Christian Sprenger, going 2:07.79 to win the championship final. Jamieson now leads the Aussie by nine-tenths, and he won this race by 1.7 seconds over Adam Peaty.

A number of semi-finals also went off on night 1. Here are some highlights:

• Young star Sophie Taylor went 31.41 to lead the women’s 50 breast. She sits two tenths up on Sarah Vasey.
• British record-holder Ben Proud sits convincingly atop the men’s 50 fly. His 23.49 is a half-second up on the field and three tenths off his Brit record.
• Fran Halsall beat out O’Connor for the top 100 fly seed by a single hundredth of a second, going 58.33 to O’Connor’s 58.34.
• In the men’s 100 back, Chris Walker-Hebborn stole the top seed from British record-holder Liam Tancock. Walker-Hebbort went 54.01 to Tancock’s 54.67.

In addition, there were four “junior” events swum at the beginning and end of the session:

• Emma Cain went 4:51.91 to win the girls 400 IM, a time that would have placed 7th in the open age group event.
• Daniel Jervis touched out Martyn Walton to win the boys 400 free. Jervis went 3:56.43 to Walton’s 3:56.56.
• At the end of the session, Mari Davies put up a 2:02.40 to win the girls 200 free, topping Georgina Boyle by just .3.
• Night 1 finals closed with Jack Burton‘s 2:17.22 win in the boys 200 breast. Charlie Atwood was second in 2:18.88.

On top of all that, one multi-class Paralympics event was swum, the men’s 100 free. Parlympic gold medalist and world record-holder Josef Craig topped the combined field in British Disability Points, putting up a 1:01.29 to head the field. Matthew Wylie took second, swimming a 58.69. Craig competes in Category S7, while Wylie swims in S9, which is why the times produce different amounts of points.

Full results are available here.