Dean rounds out World Swimming Championships with bronze

Tom Dean secured Great Britain a bronze medal in the Men’s 200m Freestyle on the final day of action at the FINA World Swimming Championships (25m).

Dean’s success took Britain’s total to four medals for the week following on from the success of Ben Proud and Anna Hopkin on the penultimate day on Saturday.

Coming into the final as the fastest qualifier from the morning session Dean secured himself a centre lane for the final and got off the blocks well in this one too.

Dean settled into a strong position in the opening stages and always stayed in contention for the medal places.

He battled hard towards the end as he raced with David Popovici for the silver medal position but he missed by just 0.07 to the Romanian.

Neither of the pair could catch South Korea’s Sunwoo Hwang who swam an incredible race from the outside lane to take the world title by more than a second.

Hwang finished in 1:39.72 which was a new championships record with Popovici next (1:40.79) and Dean third (1:40.86), improving on his time from the heats by 0.12.

The result was the Bath Performance Centre swimmers first world (25m) medal a feat he was happy to have achieved.

Speaking to World Aquatics reporter Nick Hope after the race he said: “I’m really happy with the bronze.

“The 200m is always an interesting one and short course and long course are like different sports.

“They were so upbeat there, attacking from the start. I was racing someone I couldn’t even see so it was hard to be tactical.

“But the bronze medal I’m really chuffed with because I’ve now got an individual international medal at every major competition and that was in the back of my mind as something that would be cool to do.

“Into the 1:48.80’s too, improving from heats to the finals that’s something I always want to do and something that I’m proud that I’m capable of so I’m happy.

“The thing about short course or anything for us it’s about taking away learning from it. Working on your skills, underwater starts and all these things that you can carry into the long course season.”

Fifth for Greenbank

A strong swim from Luke Greenbank saw him finish fifth in the Men’s 200m Backstroke.

The Loughborough Performance Centre swimmer finished strongly in his race as he closed in on fourth placed Yohann Ndoye-Brouard but unfortunately the Frenchman and the podium places were just out of reach despite his impressive performance.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympian finished in a time of 1:49.79 which was an improvement from his effort in the heats by 0.55 as he moved up from sixth to fifth fastest with the result.

It was an American one-two in the end with Ryan Murphy (1:47.41) taking the title ahead of teammate Shaine Casas (1:48.01) with Italy’s Lorenzo Mora (1:48.45) rounding out the podium.

Clark and Peaty round out their week with another final appearance

Imogen Clark and Adam Peaty rounded out their week in Melbourne with a sixth place finish each in the 50m Breaststroke events.

Adam Peaty got more miles in the tank with sixth place in his final.

In a competitive race Peaty finished just 0.61 off America’s Nic Fink who set a new championships record to take the title.

The three-time Olympic gold medallist Peaty set a time of 25.99 which saw him move up one position from seventh to sixth from his semi-final result.

Imogen Clark ended a successful week with her second finals appearance of the meet.

After setting a new British record in the semi-final yesterday, Clark ended her 2022 with a sixth place finish in the event at this year’s championships.

The Derventio swimmer set a time of 29.47 as she touched the wall just ahead of Italy’s Benedetta Pilato.

The result added to her semi-final appearance in the 100m event as well as her exploits with Britain’s 4x50m Freestyle relay team who made the final in an impressive debut world championships appearance.

After the race Clark posted on social media saying: “What an experience, I never thought I would be on the world stage, never mind be up there with the best.

“Coming away from my first ever world championships making two finals, one semi-final, and a new British Record! Forever grateful.”

You can catch all the results from the FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) here.