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British Championships & World Trials - Day 1

Apr 11, 2001  - Anita Lonsbrough

No qualifying times on day one of the British Championships which are also doubling up as the trials for this summer's World Championships in Japan. The venue the new Manchester Aquatic Centre the venue for next year's Commonwealth Games.

Paul Palmer the 1996 Atlanta Olympic silver medallist was suffering from being "rusty" in his first race since the Sydney Olympic Games. In his morning swim "felt hard and so did the final". Although he won the final his time of 3min 51.82sec was outside the World Championship qualifying time.

He claimed "I tried to leave them with 100 to go but I just didn't have it so I had to wait until the last 25m". Heading him until the closing stages was the Graeme Smith the 1996 Olympic 1500m bronze medallist.

Palmer now at the ripe old age of twenty-six admits to "feel more comfortable over the 200m" and that's where his training has been focused since the Sydney Games. Missing the qualifying time has not worried Palmer who feels the 200m is within his grasp.

There were just two finals on day one. In the other Holly Fox the seventeen year old from Reading, improved her personal best by over two seconds to win the 400m medley in 4min 49.09sec. But her time was still some three seconds shy of the British record of 4min 46.83sec set by Sharron Davies when she took silver at the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games.

Alison Sheppard the only British female swimmer to reach a final at the Sydney Olympics, qualified for the final of the 50m freestyle in 25.13sec just 100th outside her British and Commonwealth records. Rosalind Brett in her final year at Loughborough University set an English record of 25.41sec shaving 700ths off the figures set last year by Susan Rolph the Commonwealth champion.