British Championships, Day 1 Men’s Finals: Top Seeds James Guy & Greg Butler Set For Tilt At Worlds Berth
James Guy and Greg Butler are the top seeds for the 400 free and 100m breaststroke respectively at the Aquatics GB Swimming Championships in London.
The pair headed the prelims in their respective events with Guy going 3:50.28 in his fourth outing over 400m since he decided to return to the eight-length event while Butler went 1:00.23 in the breaststroke.
The meet doubles as trials for the World Championships which run from 27 July to 3 August in Singapore where selection will be based on performances at the Paris Olympics and the Aquatics GB Swimming Championships in London.
Swimmers who won a medal in an individual event at Paris 2024 will be selected to the Great Britain team for this event in Singapore.
Individual medallists in Paris were Adam Peaty (silver, 100m breaststroke), Ben Proud (silver, 50m freestyle), Matt Richards (silver, 200m freestyle) and Duncan Scott (silver, 200IM). Peaty isn’t competing in London as he takes a break from competition and neither will he be in Singapore.
Relay medallists will be selected subject to confirmation by the Great Britain head coach, Steve Tigg. The men’s 4×2 free quartet claimed an historic gold as they defended their title from Tokyo with Tom Dean and Guy joining Richards and Scott.
To qualify for worlds, a swimmer must finish first in an Olympic event and record a time that equals or betters those in the table below.
Athletes that finish second in a time equal or better than that in the table will be considered for selection to a team that will have a maximum of 30 athletes.
400m Freestyle
Guy went out fast and reached the 100m mark with a two-second lead over Jack McMillan as he reached halfway in 52.59 to 54.64, an advantage he extended to 3.33secs at halfway. The 2015 world silver medallist maintained his lead at the head of the field and was still more than 4secs ahead at the final turn as he came home in 3:46.64, outside the cut for Singapore of 3:45.43. Tyler Melbourne-Smith came through for second in 3:49.38 with McMillan third in 3:50.05.
Guy said it was “an okay swim” adding: “I didn’t quite have the finish I wanted.”
Of his reasons for returning to the 400, he told Swimming World: “I just feel like now being with Ryan (coach Ryan Livingstone), I just feel much more confident in what I’m doing and I aerobically fitter to do the 400 to a good level. I know I shouldn’t have given it up but I wasn’t enjoying the way I was doing it, I wasn’t really seeing much progression whereas now the 200 is probably the best it’s ever been, it was a PB in Paris leading off. So why not for the 400? I’d come from that 400 background down so I just felt like why not race it? Doing this event I had nothing to lose at all – at the end of the day I’m the oldest one in the field by quite a little bit – they should be beating me, I shouldn’t be beating them that’s how I kind of see it really.”
100m Breaststroke
Adam Peaty was on poolside watching on as former City of Derby and Loughborough teammate Greg Butler broke the minute mark for the first time en-route to victory. Butler stopped the clock in 59.93 ahead of Max Morgan who set a 17-years age group record of 1:00.10 with Filip Nowacki third in 1:00.28.
Butler – whose time was outside the automatic 59.65 QT – said of going inside a minute: “Really good. It’s been a long time I’ve been trying to do it so to finally do it, I’m really happy about it.”
