Matthew Kidd the twenty one year old who has been knocking on the door of British swimming for some time finally broke through on day three of the British Short Course Championships with a British record for the 100m freestyle.

In June Kidd narrowly missed the long course mark and a place on the team for the World Championships in Fukuoka. But he put that behind him and stormed down the pool leaving his rivals well in his wake to battle for the minor places.

His time of 48.06 sliced 0.42sec off the nine-year old mark held by Mike Fibbens. Afterwards he admitted "I took it out hard and hung on down the last 25m". He is now off to the World Student Games where he is hoping to lower the long course mark.

Before the final of the 50m breast-stroke the record was jointly held by Darren Mew and James Gibson but Mew made it his out right own. His swim of 27.21 shaved eleven hundredths off the British figures.

Having missed the European record for the 1500m freestyle in Perth, by just 0.35sec Graeme Smith wanted to capture it and bring to end a successful year on a high note. The double World medallist set out well but as he explained afterwards "It was hard, really hard." Adding "After 1100m it hit me, once it hits there's nothing you can do but hang on for dear life." His final time of 14:37.75 was just 0.47sec off the British mark he set in Australia.