Morning heats lay script for final Madeira hurrah

A fully loaded Women’s S14 100m Butterfly awaits as Jessica-Jane Applegate, Poppy Maskill and Louise Fiddes all progressed into the final ranked second through fourth. Only the Australian Paige Leonhardt will swim sandwiched between them come the final as she will attempt to be the thorn in stopping yet another GB clean sweep within the S14 class.

In the men’s equivalent, Recce Dunn buoyed after his leg in last night’s dramatic mixed relay victory produced the most assured individual heat of the week to progress with the second fastest qualifying time after winning the opening of two heats.

Elsewhere Tully Kearney began the defence of her S5 100m Freestyle with top spot in qualifying. If the 50m and 200m titles already reclaimed by the National Performance Centre athlete are anything to go by, all eyes will be on the clock to see if Kearney can take a hattrick of world records in addition to repeating her 2019 triple crown. Ellie Challis looked equally comfortable in qualifying from the S3 100 Freestyle affair, going close to her personal best over two lengths of the pool to position herself well for a potential fourth podium of the meet.

Bringing the curtain down of the Championships will be the Mixed 4x100m Freestyle 34pts relay, and the quartet of Oliver Carter, Alice Tai, Grace Harvey and James Hollis secured Great Britain’s involvement in the finally from a fast heat.

Carter will have been pleased to lead the team out in faster split than he produced in his S10 100m individual, with Tai and Harvey’s providing their respective S8 and S6 Freestyle medal prowess through the centre of the relay to give Hollis anchoring responsibility as the team finished fourth in their heat but qualified fifth fastest overall.

Meanwhile the Humphrey sisters have thrown themselves at every opportunity on their debut world championships appearance, and they started the British action of the final heats session with the Women’s S11 400m Freestyle. Sharing a lane rope, Scarlett led her sibling over the opening lengths from the outermost lane zero, before Eliza edged ahead just after the halfway mark and maintained her pacing to nip in and take the last qualifying spot for a second swim this evening. Scarlett finishing ninth overall to round out her competition.

Similarly Lyndon Longhorne has filled his racing schedule across the week and qualified this morning from the Men’s S4 200m Freestyle in 8th to book his ticket for a further final on the world stage.

With a lane there is always a chance of getting on the podium, but one thing for certain is we can expect another close dual from the opposite side of the pool against the Spaniard Javier Torres, with whom Longhorne had a number of close races at the Aberdeen 2022 World Series meet earlier this year.