The European Swimming Championships start today in Budapest.
From a British perspective it has a strange feel to it knowing that the Commonwealth Games will be the main focus this year. It is a shame that British Swimming don't put so much emphasis on European competition. As good as Australia, South Africa and Canada are, for many of our top swimmers they face much fiercer rivals in Europe than they do in the Commonwealth.
Britain should still come away with a decent medal haul. With Ryan Lochte swimming like a man possessed something must be going right in Florida so look for team-mate Gemma Spofforth to have a good meet.
Key British races to watch
Elizabeth Simmonds vs Gemma Spofforth - 100m/200m Backstroke
Katinka Hosszu vs Hannah Miley - 400m IM
Liam Tancock vs Camille Lacourt - 100m Backstroke
Francesca Halsall vs Femke Heemskerk - 100m Freestyle
Rebecca Adlington vs Federica Pellegrini vs Lotte Friis - 800m Freestyle
Ellen Gandy vs Jemma Lowe vs Mireia Belmonte Garcia vs Katinka Hosszu vs Zsuzsanna Jakabos - 200m Butterfly
Federica Pellegrini vs Rebecca Adlington vs Jo Jackson vs Coralie Balmy vs Camille Muffat - 400m Freestyle
Women's 4 x 200m Freestyle Relay
Women's 4 x 100m Medley Relay
Other races to watch out for
Paul Biedermann vs Yannick Agnel - 400m Freestyle
Laszlo Cseh vs Gergo Kis - 400m IM
Fred Bousquet vs Alain Bernard vs Fabien Gilot vs Amaury Leveaux - Heats 50m Freestyle (only 2 can go through)
Start Lists and Results can be found - Here
Live Timing - Here
For those in the UK, the BBC are doing a pretty decent job this year with some coverage of every evening session. (Unfortunately it only makes it onto BBC 2 three times during the competition)
Eurosport as usual will show both heats and finals. For those that don't have Eurosport you can sign up online for £3.99 a month to watch it online. Well worth it.
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Amy smith swam a great relay lead off, 54.70, Considering her PB is 54.86 she really swam well, And Jo swam 56.2 which suprised me, But Fran looked soo good,53.94 easing up on the way home, I think Ellis can come in and split 55.1 0r so, Jessy Sylvester swam a good 55.56, Did you known 14 year old Amelia Maughan is britains number 4 this year, 56.09, We should medal in the final, A lot depends on Amy on lead off in my opinion, Fran will bring it home well as always.
ReplyDeleteSpoff & Simmonds swam comfortable, Cant see anyone touching them, Simmonds looks like a hot favourite, she took 2 metres off everyone at the start, and them turns make the Americans look poor, She is great, And finally off british performances, French men looked good, Women not soo good, I think most of our team are performing well considering the circumstances, Really encouraging looking forward to Delhi.
I wonder if they move Fran to first leg to try and get a lead. They did that at World last year when the team was Fran, Caitlin McClatchey, Katherine Wyld and Amy Smith. That day we finished 7th and were behind Netherlands (1st), Germany (2nd) and Sweden (5th) and those will be the teams to beat again tonight.
ReplyDeleteGermany have to be considered favourites and will bring in Daniela Samulski (54.55 this year) for tonight's final. Obviously Britta Steffen is a big loss but the emergence of Silke Lippok has done a lot to negate Steffen's absence.
Had Ranomi Kromowidjojo, Marleen Veldhuis and Inge Dekker been fit for this competition then the Dutch may well have romped home with this one.
Sweden still have Sarah Sjostrom and Therese Alshammar to bring into the team.
With Fran and Amy Smith in the team we are definitely going to be in the hunt for the medals although I fancy the three teams above slightly more than us. (Hoping for the opposite obviously!)
Amelia Maughan's times from the Youth Championships were very encouraging. 56.06 for a 14 year old is fantastic. Keep checking the blog as I will do something on the Youth Championships and how we are matching up against some other nations soon.
British team splits:
ReplyDeleteSmith-54.48(PB)
Halsall-53.05
Sylvester-55.38
Joanne Jackson-55.56(Form again?,Let her Anchor 4.200m)
Amy Smith really could medal in 100m free, 2 PBs in a row, Fran looks like she will swim low 53s, As her best ever relay split is 52.81, When she was in 52.87 form, I think she is a real Duel racer, Jo Jackson looks to be in shape which is great, Tancock was
disappointing but you cant win them all.
Smiley Miley was a world apart, Lizzie looked amazing, And France, learn laps, That relay!!!