SWIMMING: COPS girls make finals in Glasgow

The 2016 British Swimming Championships moved into day two at the Tollcross Pool in Glasgow yesterday (April 13) and City of Peterborough Swimming Club (COPS) had three swimmers competing against the best of British swimming's talent.
COPS girls in Glasgow. Left to right Mollie Allen, Leah Roughan, Chloe Hannam and Rachel Wellings.COPS girls in Glasgow. Left to right Mollie Allen, Leah Roughan, Chloe Hannam and Rachel Wellings.
COPS girls in Glasgow. Left to right Mollie Allen, Leah Roughan, Chloe Hannam and Rachel Wellings.

The first event to take place in the morning was the women’s 100m backstroke and COPS had two swimmers that had qualified for this event - and to make things interesting their qualification times placed them in the same heat.

Sixteen year-old Rachel Wellings was placed in lane one while Mollie Allen (17) was placed in lane six.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

From the start Mollie showed how good underwater skills in the first 15 metres can improve your chances as she led the way for most of the first 50m.

However, she turned in second place but kept up her pace to finish in a new personal best time of 1:03.43.

Wellings finished in fourth place with a new personal best time that placed her into the junior final in the evening.

Next up for COPS was Leah Roughan (17), who qualified for the final heat of the women’s 200m breaststroke in lane eight. Roughan finished her heat in sixth place with a time of 2:33.47 which earned her a place in the Target Tokyo final.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Target Tokyo finals have been introduced to these championships to give those swimmers aged 16 to 20 years that are deemed potential competitors for the Tokyo Olympics that aren’t in the senior final a chance to experience the pressure of racing in finals.

Junior finals are for competitors aged 14-18 years to try to achieve qualifying times for the European Junior championships that didn’t qualify for either the Open or Tokyo finals.

In her 100m backstroke junior final Wellings was placed in lane seven and she started well enough to be placed second at the 50m turn. At the final mark there was just four tenths of a second separating the second place swimmer and Rachel who finished in fifth place with another personal best time of 1:03.82.

Roughan was next up in the Target Tokyo 200m breastroke final in which she had been placed in lane two. Roughan was in third place after 100m and ahead of the eventual race winner but she was unable to maintain her momentum and she finished in fifth place just .14seconds off fourth place.

Related topics: