Shuttleworth Shocks Sheffield, Breaks British 1500 Freestyle Record

2016 ASA WINTER NATIONALS

• Ponds Forge, Sheffield (25m)
• December 15th – 18th
• Meet Central
• Event Schedule
• Live Stream
• Start Lists/Results
• Days 1 & 2 Recap

Last night’s action in Sheffield rendered a women’s British National Record wiped clear, courtesy of Molly Renshaw’s outstanding 200m breaststroke performance. Tonight, however, it was the men’s turn at taking a whack at the history books, which 19-year-old Tim Shuttleworth accomplished in a big way.

Shuttleworth entered Ponds Forge with major pool credentials, having taken the 1500m freestyle title at the British National Championships (Olympic Trials) this past April. In Rio, he earned 10th in the event, just missing out on an appearance in finals as just a teen.

Competing in the grueling 1500m free tonight, Shuttleworth threw down a new British best of 14:24.00 to handily take the gold in the race. That time not only knocked a whopping 17 seconds off of his own personal record, but it also laid waste to the national mark of 14:32.56 which has stood since 2004.

Of tonight’s outing, Shuttleworth commented, “I had the race plan to go into it. I kept my legs low in the first 100 and then just built into the race. I knew I was in good shape and I can here to get as close to it as I could, that was the game plan.”

Bath University’s Jay Lelliott also commanded attention tonight, claiming his first gold of the meet to make his already-huge medal haul shine even more brightly. Lelliott took the men’s 200m butterfly race in a time of 1:54.92, just less than a tenth of a second off of his personal best from 2014. Lelliott already clinched silvers in the 100m free, 400m free, 200m back and 100m back events across just the first 3 days of this meet, with the latter race serving as his first of his two-event double in tonight’s session.

As an encore to her stunning 200m breaststroke British National Record from last night, Renshaw got the job done again tonight, this time in the 100m version of the discipline. Scoring a mark of 1:05.57, Renshaw won the race by over a second to register the 4th best time of her career.

Settling for silver behind Renshaw was Edinburgh’s Corrie Scott, who is no stranger to spotlight herself. Her time of 1:06.71 tonight wasn’t too far off her own Scottish National Record of 1:06.06 set just recently at the Scottish National Championships.