Hannah Miley may have relinquished her national 200m medley title but she claims it’s in safe hands with British swimming's new generation.
Miley, who has dominated the event for six straight years, saw 21-year-old Sophie Allen take her place at the top of the podium at the British Gas Swimming Championships in a time of 2:11.34 minutes – inside the World Championship qualifying standard.
Allen was followed by 17-year-old Siobhan-Marie O’Connor – who also dipped below the magic 2:13.14 mark – with Miley picking up bronze in Sheffield.
But the 23-year-old passed on encouraging words to her successor and can take solace from winning an eighth consecutive 400m medley title earlier in the week.
"I fully expected them to win it, it was exactly as I predicted, although I thought that Siobhan-Marie was going to get it," said Miley.
"I’m really happy to get among the medals. I assumed I was going to come fourth or fifth with the way things have been going, I’ve fractured my hand on my knuckle, so it’s not been feeling great in the water.
"I’ve just had to plough through it but hopefully once it has recovered and healed, I’ll be able to swim properly with both hands at the World Champs.
"The younger ones are definitely showing that they have the talent and they deserve their spots, that’s why they came in the top two and for them to swim that well is great."
Jemma Lowe won the 100m butterfly final securing herself a qualifying time for Barcelona in the process.
The 23-year-old former Olympic finalist clocked 58.02 seconds and made up for the disappointment of missing out on the 200m gold earlier in the week.
“I’m really happy that I managed to do the time," she said.
"For some reason I was so nervous before that race which is silly because I’ve been in so many more high pressure situations.
“But it just shows that it means a lot to me and I really wanted to get the time and not do what I what I did in the 200 and make the mistake of going slower.”
Elsewhere, Roberto Pavoni swam his way to the men's 200m medley title in 1:58.14, while in the women’s 100m backstroke Lauren Quigley claimed gold with a time of 1:00.07.
© Sportsbeat 2013