Molly Renshaw wins 200m Breaststroke silver on Gold Coast

Molly Renshaw dug deep to claim 200m Breaststroke silver on the third day of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games.

The English swimmer came home in 2:23.28, improving one place from her bronze medal in the same event at Glasgow 2014.

The result brought Team England their third swimming medal – and their third breaststroke medal – of the day.

Renshaw’s training partner James Wilby had already won a silver, joining defending champion Adam Peaty on the podium in the 100m Breaststroke.

“I haven’t been on the podium since 2016 so it’s amazing to get back up there – it’s such a good feeling.” said Renshaw.

“Coming into a race like that the time you do at the end is completely irrelevant. It’s about getting out there and handling the pressure.

“There are some who can’t do that so it’s about sticking to your race plan and swimming with blinkers on. If you can do that then hopefully you make the podium and that’s what I tried to do tonight.

“I could see Chloe [Tutton] ahead of me at 150m. I know she has a strong back 50m but it’s not always my strength so I’ve been working on that so much in training. I stuck to my long, strong stroke and hoped it would get me that medal.”

Renshaw paced her race supremely, remaining in the top three throughout.

While South Africa’s Tatjana Schoenmaker took hold of the race from the middle lane on the way to victory in 2:22.02, Renshaw was one of three swimmers battling for the remaining two podium spots.

The English swimmer kept her form to steal ahead of Wales’ Chloe Tutton at the wall. Tutton ultimately took bronze in 2:23.42 ahead of Canada’s Kierra Smith (2:23.62).

Women’s relay win 4x200m Free bronze

England claimed their fourth medal of the night in the final race of the day, winning 4x200m Freestyle Relay bronze.

The quartet of Ellie Faulkner, Siobhan-Marie O’Connor, Freya Anderson and Holly Hibbott came home in 7:55.60.

O’Connor, Faulkner and Anderson were part of the 4x100m Free relay team who won bronze on the opening night in Australia.

And the three of them put Hibbott in a comfortable position to repeat the result in the longer event, with the Stockport Metro swimmer anchoring them home nearly six seconds ahead of Scotland (8:01.55) in fourth.

“We all did really well and it’s great to get another medal for Team England,” said O’Connor, who will look to defend her 200m IM title on day four in Australia.

Faulkner added: “It was a bit harder than the other night. Unfortunately I didn’t go as fast but I’m happy that the team came together and we pulled out a nice bronze medal.”

The other English finalist of the night was Jacob Leach in the SB8 100m Breaststroke. The 17-year old took his PB down to 1:25.35 to finish fifth.

Gold Coast 2018 Results and Schedule

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