Brits in record breaking form at World Series Berlin

Twenty-three of Great Britain’s Paralympics bound team continued their journey towards the Paris 2024 Games with four days of racing action at the Citi Para Swimming World Series Berlin 2024, running in conjunction with the famous IDM Berlin Para Swimming meet.

Building towards the defence of her Paralympic titles, Maisie Summers-Newton closed her programme at the Europasportpark competition pool with an emphatic 200m Individual Medley performance – lowering the SM6 world record she set in 2021 at the Tokyo Games by over a second and a half to 2:55.07.

Equating to 1023 points in the multi-classification racing format, it confirmed a second World Series gold of the meet for Summers-Newton who had already secured victory in the Women’s MC 400m Freestyle in addition to Women’s MC 100m Breaststroke silver in the preceding days of competition.

Summarising thoughts on her performances in Berlin, Summers -Newton said:

"I feel so pleased to have raced so well in Berlin while we are in still in a period of full training. To break a world record too has given me a lot of confidence for this point of the season, and I feel really excited to see what’s to come in Paris!"

William Ellard tested his endurance with a busy programme in Berlin which yielded a world record, a European record and seven medal return.

After getting his schedule underway with double bronze on day one in the Men’s MC 200m Freestyle and 100m Butterfly, Ellard’s gold medal account opened with the lowering of his S14 100m Freestyle world record to 51.07 seconds. A sprint victory in the Men’s MC 50m Freestyle was followed by Ellard notching a time of 4:09.02 in the Men’s MC 400m Freestyle to add the S14 European record to his accolades as he rounded out his individual events with a third World Series bronze.

When asked how he approached his world record swim, Ellard commented:

“I’m just trusting my coach here, [the plan was to] go out quite easy and build into the turn, push off and work the last fifty and hope for the best. I died in the last five metres and thought I didn’t do it, but it’s all good practice towards Paris.”

Two further triumphs came for Ellard in the relay opportunities – leading off an S14 quartet of Rhys Darbey, Louise Fiddes and Poppy Maskill in the Mixed 4x100m Freestyle, and anchoring the Mixed 4x100m Medley after legs from Maskill, Harry Stewart and Olivia Newman-Baronius.

Outside of her relay involvement, Newman-Baronius delivered a great swim in the Women’s MC 200m Butterfly to set a new S14 European record of 2:29.54 as she took silver behind British teammate Faye Rogers who eclipsed the S10 world record mark, stopping the clock on 2:26.39.

“I was completely shocked that I was that fast,” said Rogers

“But I felt really strong and there’s definitely more to come on that race as well so yeah it’s exciting. We’re all in the middle of quite a hard training phase and no one is rested so I have no idea how everyone is swimming so quickly but it's really nice to see, and going into Paris I think there's going to be some really big swims from a lot of the team.”

Over half the distance, Rogers took MC Women’s 100m Butterfly silver on an all British podium - edging fellow S10 Callie-Ann Warrington by two tenths into the wall, while Alice Tai took top spot overall in the multi-classification rankings.

That was the second of three golds for Rio 2016 Paralympic champion, Tai, who recorded additional victories in the Women’s MC 200m Backstroke and 50m Butterfly alongside a silver and bronze respectively in the Women’s MC 50m and 100m Backstroke contests.

Meanwhile Stephen Clegg charged to gold in both the Men’s MC 100m Butterfly and 100m Backstroke as he moved on the times he delivered at April’s Speedo Aquatics GB Championships in London.

Speaking after his Butterfly swim, Clegg said:

“That time this evening is the fastest is I’ve been in three years I think and so I’m really happy and for me that’s a really good starting point for Paris.

“It’s still a while to go, there’s about 12 weeks until the Games so we’ve got a lot of time to build on the training we’ve been doing - so for us not much changes really [post-Berlin]. I think what we’re doing is working and everything seems to be lining up very nicely.”

Adding to the record books across the four day meet was 13-year-old Iona Winnifrith who set an SB7 European best of 40.71 in the 50m Breaststroke – sealing Women’s MC silver just three tenths behind the Canadian SB7 swimmer, Tess Routliffe, who broke the world mark.

Rounding out the British medal haul achieved in Berlin were bronzes for Bruce Dee in the Men’s MC 200m Individual Medley and Poppy Maskill in the Women’s MC 100m Freestyle.

Full results from the Citi Para Swimming World Series Berlin 2024 inc. IDM Berlin Para Swimming meet can be found here, while live streaming playback is available on sportdeutschland.tv.