Ben Proud admitted the double-gold medal winning achievements of England teammate Fran Halsall had spurred him on to pick up a second title himself on the final night of swimming at Glasgow 2014.
Halsall became the first woman to complete a Commonwealth Games sprint double when she stormed to victory in both the women’s 50m freestyle and 50m butterfly.
And 19-year-old Proud, who also took 4x100m freestyle bronze at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre, repeated the achievement on Tuesday evening.
With the 50m butterfly already in the bag, Proud added the 50m freestyle title when he held off Australians Cameron McEvoy and James Magnussen to touch in a time of 21.92 seconds.
“It’s amazing – to see Fran Halsall do it first made me think that if I could do the double it would be an amazing achievement for England but I just tried to keep my cool and get the race finished,” he said.
“As soon as you see one person win you think I really want that to be me and I want to do as well as they did, so I think we’ve helped each other to a new level.
“To be honest I just wanted to gain some experience and to race against the great swimmers here
“I managed to keep my cool quite well – for the finals it’s about getting every single detail right and I thank everyone I have worked with who has helped me.”
There was further gold medal success for England with the men’s 4x100m medley relay team of Adam Brown, Adam Peaty, Chris Walker-Hebborn, and Adam Barrett getting home ahead of the Australians while Halsall was part of the women’s 4x100m medley team which finished second.
Wales’ Georgia Davies edged out England’s Lauren Quigley in the women’s 50m backstroke to take gold.
Davies’ Wales teammate Jazz Carlin was unable to add her 800m freestyle title however, having to settle for silver in the 400m freestyle while Dan Jervis took bronze in the 1500m freestyle.
And Scotland’s Dan Wallace added 200m individual medley silver to his 400m individual medley gold won on Friday.
© Sportsbeat 2014