Anderson and Evans spot opportunity to learn from finals exposure

For Angharad Evans who is only at her second senior international meet – after making her debut for Great Britain at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games – each round of the Women’s 100m Breaststroke has posed an additional opportunity to further craft her race processes on the world stage.

Though producing a slower that her British record from the previous day, the University of Stirling swimmer attempted to respond to the leading pace as she closed the gap to within 0.25 seconds of bronze position at the final turn, before beginning to fall slightly back down the order in the closing 25m to touch the wall in seventh.

“Such a good experience and definitely what I needed to get under my belt.” Said Evans,

“I’m now ready to focus on my other two events and maybe a relay later this week so that’s where my attention goes to now.”

On what elements she’s been focussing on putting into practice in Budapest, she added:

“Definitely walls, I mean that’s something that we’ve focussed on all of last year and short course is such a good area in the season to focus on that, but moving forward this has been good practice for long course season to hopefully qualify for worlds in summer.”

Meanwhile the opening final of Thursday evening’s schedule had seen Freya Anderson line up in lane seven of the Women’s 100m Freestyle.

On this occasion Anderson was unable to leave any real mark on the contest – sitting consistently in seventh throughout – but with limited individual racing experience in 2024, there too was plenty of learnings the David McNulty-coached swimmer felt she could take forward into the meet and beyond:

“I’m a little bit disappointed with that but you know it was still really fun to get out and race as I’ve not had any individual races this year.

“To be out racing again, and be in front of such a good crowd, that keeps me looking forward to the 200m and some relays and seeing what I can learn from that.”

Elsewhere, Thursday morning’s heats featured Joshua Gammon in his first individual swim of the world championships as he finished 20th in the Men’s 200m Butterfly, while Oliver Morgan continued sharpen his racing skills placing 25th in the Men’s 50m Backstroke standings.

Full results from the 2025 World Aquatics Short Course Swimming Championships can be found here, with live streaming of the event available across 10th-15th December on the Eurovision Sport platform.