Another confidence boosting individual medley lifetime best performance saw Abbie Wood claim her second bronze medal of the World Aquatics Short Course Swimming Championships on Saturday night.
The Women’s 400m Individual Medley delivered the standout moment for Great Britain in the penultimate finals session in Budapest, as Abbie Wood put in a classy swim to take home another bronze on the world stage following her 200m Individual Medley medal on the opening night.
Race proceedings saw the rankings of the podium places remained unchanged beyond the 50m turn in this contest, with Wood establishing her hold on bronze over the field with an assured swim over the Butterfly, Backstroke and Breaststroke exchanges.
Digging deep to hold a strong pace over the closing freestyle kept late challenges at bay, and pushed Wood to a new personal best over the distance to add to her second medal of the meet.
“I’ve been waiting for that PB for like four years now – I think I got it in this pool back in 2020 at ISL and it’s kind of the same mentality of no pressure and just race and I think I need to go into the rest of the season in that way.” Said Wood,
“I think I’ve got a lot to take away from how I’ve been training the last three months, like I definitely think we’ll look at it as we move into long course as we can’t ignore the results I’ve got and I hope that build into confidence in my racing moving forwards.”
In the following Men’s 400m Individual Medley final, Max Litchfield had earnt his position in lane four by setting the fastest qualifying time in the morning heats.
A compact race over the opening butterfly leg of the final allowed Litchfield to pick his way up through the field across the 100m backstroke to lie in third at the halfway mark. The Dave Hemmings-coached swimmer’s challenge on the medal positions continued throughout the Breaststroke and a rallying closing Freestyle, however Litchfield was unfortunately pegged back to fifth overall at the finish.
“I’m not really happy with that given I was quicker this morning – I don’t really know what’s gone wrong there but we’ll look back at it and see what we should have done differently.” said Litchfield,
“I just wanted this meet to be a nice springboard and obviously there’s still an element of that, but I want to be competing for those medals every time and I wasn’t even really in the race there as far as I could tell. I’ve got one more race tomorrow in the 200m Free to see what we can do there and then we’re onto long course building up to trials and the summer.”
In the closing final of Saturday night Oliver Morgan, Angharad Evans, Joshua Gammon and Eva Okaro combined forces in the Mixed 4x100m Medley Relay.
Leading the team out in the equivalent of a new 100m Backstroke personal best, Morgan handed the baton over to Evans in third place at the first changeover. With nations balancing there athlete selections to each stroke differently, the distances between each of the teams varied greatly across the contest – but it was evident all of the British foursome had stepped it up a gear from their qualification run, and after further changeovers from Evans to Gammon, then onto Okaro to close it out, the team placed a highly respectable fifth on the world stage.
“That was good fun – I love a relay” said Morgan,
“We’re such a young foursome I guess, so it’s great to get that experience together and to go out and enjoy it. Fifth for us is really good and only adds to our preparation for the Men’s and Women’s relays tomorrow as there’s a confidence boost from seeing the things we’re working on coming together.”
Prior to anchoring home the British relay quartet, Eva Okaro delivered an impressive swim in the Women’s 50m Freestyle semi-final where she took a further slice out of her personal best and go below 24 seconds for the first time and confirming her place in the final as the sixth fastest athlete to progress.
Friday's finals session saw Amelie Blocksidge set a new British junior record on her way to placing seventh in the Women's 1500m Freestyle.
In contesting the fastest heat, 15-year-old Blocksidge got her first taste of a senior international finals session - and the City of Salford athlete showed good pacing to fight through some of the field as the 60-lap contest unfolded, moving up to finish fifth in her race and seventh overall.
Her time of 15:47.28 was more than a second faster than she went a year ago, and only a second outside the senior British record.
Speaking about what she will take forward from the race and her maiden World Short Course Championships experience, Amelie said: "It was really fun, because it's not something I've ever done before. Racing against senior swimmers, I was a bit behind for some of the race, and that gives me a new challenge to chase people, and that's when I thrive. It brought me to a new PB, so that obviously worked.
"I've learned so much. I've changed my warm-ups, made a few tweaks, just to learn - and I've learned quite a bit this week."
Angharad Evans set further lifetime bests across both the Women's 200m Breaststroke and Women’s 50m Breaststroke events as she rounded out her individual competition in Budapest.
Dipping under the 30 second mark twice in a day across the sprint distance secured 12th in the world for Evans – with those efforts produced in the 24 hours following a positive swim to compete well from an outside lane of the Women's 200m Breaststroke as Kate Douglass set a new world record in lane four.
Just like Blocksidge, Evans believes there will be plenty to take from this week.
"I'm exhausted, but that's what this week is about. I came here for experience, and that's what I'm getting. It's great to be in the pool when someone's breaking a world record, especially in the 200m - I need more experience in that, so I'm taking away a lot from that swim," said the University of Stirling swimmer.
Across Friday and Saturday’s morning sessions Jacob Peters and Josh Gammon were 18th and 26th in the heats of the Men's 100m Butterfly, and Archie Goodburn placed 28th in the Men’s 50m Breaststroke.
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.