Fran Halsall celebrated her 24th birthday with the defence of her 50m freestyle title at the British Gas Swimming Championships – but admits more is needed if she’s to challenge in the summer.
Halsall, who made her second Olympic appearance at London 2012 and was Britain’s only medallist at last year’s World Championships, clocked 24.51seconds for victory in the 50m freestyle in Glasgow.
That was a consideration time for the English team for this summer’s Commonwealth Games in the same venue but, officially a year older, Halsall will be looking at the footage in a bid to improve.
“The race didn’t go quite as planned and I was a bit annoyed to be so far off my personal best.” said Halsall, who won world 50m freestyle bronze last summer.
“But I am really pleased to have got the English nomination time. Now it’s a case of going back, reassessing and looking at how I can improve my time.”
Elsewhere Ross Murdoch broke the Scottish 100m breaststroke record, clocking 59.56 to retain his title himself while Sophie Taylor set an English record 2:24.46minutes to win the 200m breaststroke.
Roberto Pavoni won his second title with gold in the 200m butterfly and Georgia Davies claimed the 100m backstroke crown with Murdoch, who was 0.01 outside the British record, lost for words.
He said: “Words can’t describe how I’m feeling at the moment. I just came out as hard as I could and tried to hang on and I’m absolutely delighted to have taken the record.”
© Sportsbeat 2014