Ben Proud says last race of 2021 should be a ‘fun one’ at World Short Course Champs

Ben Proud qualified third fastest in the Men’s 50m Freestyle on day three of the World Short Course Championships in Abu Dhabi.

The 27-year-old is ranked world number one in this event and swam a time of 20.95 in the second semi-final to ease through to Sunday’s final.

Proud was just 0.04 slower than his time set in the heats after qualifying fastest from the morning session.

His semi-final swim saw him finish 0.14 behind USA’s Ryan Held and 0.07 behind Canada’s Joshua Liendo Edwards.

The freestyle specialist admitted he is ‘looking forward’ to his last race of the year.

Hopefully it goes well

He said: “Coming back off the ISL, it’s nice to go through the heats, semis and finals, with the different structure.

“Now I’m looking forward to getting my last race of 2021 in tomorrow – it should be a good, fun one!

“Short-course 50m Freestyle, there’s not a lot to it – but you put it all together and hopefully it goes well. I’m not feeling too bad, I’ve done a lot of racing but it’s fun so let’s go for one last one.”

Elsewhere on day three, Molly Renshaw competed in the Women’s 100m Individual Medley and finished in 22nd place.

She looks ahead to the 100m Breaststroke and her favoured event, the 200m Breaststroke, later in the meet.

Katie Shanahan also narrowly missed a place in the final of the Women’s 200m Backstroke after placing 11th in her heats race.

Full results are available here.

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