Scotland is holding its Short Course National Championships this week, and night 1 was a good one for Commonwealth Games star Dan Wallace.
The Commonwealth Games gold and silver medalist won the 100 IM in an entertaining battle with countryman Liam Tancock. You can watch that race above.
Below is the official press release from Scottish Swimming, and we’ve embedded the relevant race videos into the release.
Press release courtesy of Scottish Swimming:
Dan Wallace returned to home soil with a great win in the 100m IM on the opening day of the Scottish Gas National Short Course Championships at the RCP in Edinburgh.
Wallace who won gold and silver medals in the 400m and 200m IM events in Glasgow had his work cut out as Liam Tancock looked strong across all four strokes. There wasn’t much to choose between the two after the butterfly but as expected Tancock showed his power in the backstroke and took the lead. He held onto this through the breaststroke and it was only in the last 10 metres that Wallace challenged and timed his finish into the wall with perfection, taking the title in 54.45. Tancock (Loughborough University) finished with silver in 54.55 while Lewis Coleman (City of Sheffield) finished with bronze in 55.09.
Afterwards Wallace chatted about the race and said,
“I don’t get to race the 100m IM often. It’s a lot more technical than the longer events, but the start and turns are areas I like to work on and it’s a fun event to race.”
While 2014 was all about Glasgow, like so many others Wallace is focussing on World Championships qualification in 2015.
“I was at the Worlds in Barcelona last year which was great experience. Next year I want to go to the Worlds in Russia but don’t want to be making up the numbers, I really want to compete for a medal.”
Race video:
Another crowd favourite was Hannah Miley who contested the 200m IM and 200m butterfly finals. In the IM, she took over the lead after the backstroke leg and pulled away from the rest of the field, touching home in 2:09.30. Emily Jones (Edinburgh University) won silver in 2:11.81 and Lizzie Simmonds (Bath) took the bronze in 2:12.69.
Race video:
In the 200m butterfly final, Miley faced tough opposition from the likes of Jemma Lowe, Elena Sheridan and Aimee Willmott. Miley found the going tough and was pushed into fourth place, although she did still take the National title.
Other performances of note included Stephen Milne winning gold in the 400m free and Kathleen Dawson who broke the Scottish Record for 50m backstroke in both the heats and finals, finishing runner up in the event behind Lizzie Simmonds. Her new Scottish Record time was 27.23.
Other records broken over the course of the finals were Meg Finnon (South Lanarkshire), Scottish Junior Record for 800m freestyle (8:37.16), Jack Thorpe (Edinburgh University), Scottish Record for 50m freestyle (21.94), Craig McLean (Carnegie), Scottish Junior Record for 200m backstroke (1:57.70) and 100m IM (56.23), Tain Bruce (Carnegie), Scottish Junior Record for 200m butterfly (2:10.92).
And Scottish Records were also broken in the relays with Edinburgh University winning gold in 4x50m medley relay in 1:51.44 (Lucy Hope, Kathryn Johnstone, Raquel Matos, Caitlin McClatchey) and University of Stirling also setting a new record in the men’s event, posting a time of 1:36.48 (Ryan Bennett, Craig Benson, Cameron Brodie, Robbie Renwick).
The Scottish Gas National Short Course Championships are taking place at the Royal Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh from 12-14 December 2014.
Watch all race highlights again on YouTube: www.youtube.com/
All evening finals are streamed live on www.scottishswimming.com/live
Pictures can be found on our Flickr page: www.flickr.com/
More information about the event and daily summary reports can be found at www.scottishswimming.com or www.facebook.com/
