Rate it!

0 votes

Ian Hulme, Lewis Smith, Craig Gibbons and Louise Pate sealed places on the British swim team for the World Championships in Rome after wins at the Scottish National Championships.

City of Sunderland swimmer Hulme (pictured) won the 100 metres butterfly after knocking half a second off Sheffield rival Antony James's season best to win in 52.09 seconds.

"I can't quite believe it," Hulme said. "It's taken months of hard work but I am finally on the team. I had a bad illness at the trials in March and it has taken so much to recover from that and get fit for this event.

"I am 25 and I've made my first senior national team. It's been a long time coming but it has all been worth it. It is a fantastic feeling."

Antony James (Plymouth Leander) took silver in 52.13s and Loughborough University's Matt Bowe won bronze in 52.40s.

Warrender's Smith took his final chance to qualify with a win in the 400m individual medley with a time of four minutes and 15.92 seconds.

"I have already had two chances to qualify for Rome and they didn't work out so there was extra pressure on me tonight," Smith said.

Joe Roebuck (Loughborough University) took silver four seconds behind Smith and Ieuan Lloyd (City of Cardiff) took bronze in 4:27.65.

Garioch's Hannah Miley had already sealed her qualification in the 200m breaststroke and won another gold medal.

Olympic finalist Miley stole victory by a tenth of a second from Nova Centurion's Emma Bird in 2:31.50.

Bronze was won by Stacey Tadd (University of Bath) in 2:32.05.

The women's 100m Freestyle saw Katherine Wyld (Nova Centurion) win her race but just miss out on the time needed for qualification.

Emma Wilkins, who is expected to compete in the 50m Freestyle in Rome, fought hard in the final 50 metres but Wyld took gold in 55.52s.

Wilkins took silver with a time of 55.84s and Loughborough University's Amy Smith won the bronze in 55.89s.

Miley signed off from her busy competition by winning with a time of 16:46.11 in the 1,500m freestyle. The Garioch swimmer has competed in 10 different events at the championships.

Swansea Performance's Megan Gilchrist won silver in 16:49.32 and City of Newcastle's Jessica Thielmann took bronze in 17:04.42.

Loughborough University's Craig Gibbons took the victory in the men's 50m Backstroke in a time of 26.10s.

Darren Ward (Edinburgh University) won silver with a time of 26.50s and Scott Hathaway (Loughborough University) was the bronze medallist in 26.63s.

The women's 50m Butterfly saw Louise Pate (Edinburgh University) swim to a victory almost a second ahead of the field.

Pate won gold in 27.57s and Eloise Barber (Carnegie) won silver in 28.07s. The bronze went to Sarah Easglesham (City of Chester) in 28.26s.

Eurosport