Finally the British girls are warming up (‘negative splitting the meet’ as someone mentioned over on Speed Endurance) at this meet. Roommates Jemma Lowe and Ellen Gandy both have a habit of making 200m fly look easy, but earlier today they made everyone else look like they were struggling. Short-course world champion Mireia Belmonte (next to Jemma above) didn’t even make the final, and despite doing a textile PB Steph Rice only squeezed in for 8th. That’s a strong field, and Jemma is leading it!
Jemma’s last turn in her semi was particularly great - the strength needed to keep up that dolphin kick after 150m of hard butterfly graft is tough even for top swimmers, and it helped give her a good half-body-length ahead of the others - some space to hang on with. However the Chinese pair Liu and Jiao are also very strong and Jessicah Schipper has won this event for the last two World Championships.
Whatever the result, massive props to all the 200 flyers out there - I swam two short lengths of butterfly this evening for good luck. I am VERY glad it wasn’t four long ones.
