It was another silver medal for Siobhan-Marie O’Connor and another record-breaking performance from Adam Peaty as Britain’s swimmers shone again on the penultimate evening of the World Short Course Championships.
O’Connor was joined in the 200m medley final by teammate Hannah Miley but, just like the morning heats, where she placed higher than the Scot, the 19-year-old was once gain Britain’s top performer as she took silver.
After silvers in the 100m medley and 4x50m mixed medley relay, O’Connor collected a third medal in Doha after clocking another British record of 2:05.87 minutes, slicing 0.03 seconds off Sophie Allen’s mark set a year ago.
O’Connor twice lowered her own British record on the way to 100m medley silver but she was no match for Katinka Hosszu in the 200m final as the Hungarian star set a new world record of 2:01.86 to win by just over four seconds.
“It’s been really good,” said O’Connor, who saw teammate Miley narrowly miss out on the podium by 0.16 after placing fourth.
“Coming here I didn’t really know what to expect because I love short course and long course but I am probably better at long course.
“It has been a really good meet on the back of a really good trip; we went to Thailand for a camp just before this and we got a good block of training in.
“We’ve had a good meet as GB; we had an amazing summer as a team so to come here to carry on a solid year is great. It’s small team but it’s a close team.”
Meanwhile Peaty, a double Commonwealth and four-time European champion prior to heading to Doha, where he himself also has a pair silvers, smashed a new Championship record in leading the finalists for the 50m breaststroke.
Peaty clocked 25.75 seconds for another British and Championship record and to once again qualify for out of the semi-finals in Doha as the quickest, although Brazilian Felipe Franca Silva was just 0.02 behind him.
The 19-year-old advanced to the 100m breaststroke final in identical fashion only to miss out on gold to Franca Silva and he’ll be hoping to avoid a repeat when proceedings come to a close in Doha on Sunday.
Fellow double Commonwealth champion Chris Walker-Hebborn was also in final action but had to make do with seventh and a personal best in the 50m backstroke as Florent Manaudou took gold with a world record of 22.22.
And elsewhere fellow backstroke specialist Georgia Davies took 0.07 off the British 50m record, set by housemate Fran Halsall in Tokyo in October, to join Peaty in final action on the final night as the fifth fastest.
© Sportsbeat 2014