James Guy recorded a hat-trick of wins and there were victories for Holly Hibbott, Jono Adam, Jacob Peters and sporting scholars Leah Crisp and Tom Dean as University of Bath-based swimmers returned to competitive action at the Manchester International Meet.
It was the first domestic competition since last March and Guy, who is coached by Dave McNulty at the British Swimming National Centre Bath, was pleased to see his hard work in training rewarded with victories in the men’s 100m butterfly, 200m butterfly and 200m freestyle.
“It was a great swim and I’m really happy with the time,” said Guy after finishing three seconds clear of the field in the 200m butterfly, his time of 1:56.34 being within half a second of his personal best.
“It just shows that what we’ve been doing in Bath over the past 10 weeks has been working, I’ve been doing a massive, consistent block of work and that’s starting to come together now, grinding, day in and day out. We’re a few weeks out from Olympic trials and I’m really happy with things, it’s a positive sign.”
Bill Whiteley Sporting Scholar Dean took silver behind Guy in the 200m freestyle on Sunday having recorded victory over 100m the previous day.
The first gold of the meet went to Holly Hibbott, who led a National Centre Bath one-two in the women’s 400m freestyle ahead of Leah Crisp, a University of Bath Santander Scholar.
Hibbott also won bronze in the 200m freestyle, finishing just behind fellow Bath swimmer Freya Anderson, while Crisp – who studies Economics & Mathematics – clocked the fastest time in the women’s 800m freestyle.
Anderson was also on the podium in the 50m freestyle as she took bronze, a place behind University of Bath alumna Anna Hopkin who also finished runner-up in the 100m freestyle.
Sports Performance student Adam touched the wall first in the 50m backstroke and there was a second bronze medal of the meeting for Jacob Peters, who had also finished third behind Guy in the 100m butterfly. He went on to set a new personal best of 23.65 while swimming solo in the 50m butterfly.
There were two National Centre Bath swimmers on the podium in the women’s 200m butterfly too as Emily Large and Ciara Schlosen won silver and bronze respectively.
Brodie Williams, who studies Sports Performance, was runner-up in the 100m backstroke and Natural Sciences student Jacob Greenow – who is coached by Mark Skimming and supported by a Santander Scholarship – won a fine bronze in the men’s 400m individual medley, finishing just ahead of team-mate and Goldsmith Scholar William Ryley.
Find out more about the swimming programme at the Team Bath Sports Training Village by visiting teambath.com/swimming.
Courtesy of the Team Bath Press Office at Matchtight
