2024 SCOTTISH NATIONAL OPEN SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Day 2 Highlights
We entered day two of the 2024 Scottish Open Swimming Championships with 27-year-old Olympian Duncan Scott diving back in for more tune-up races.
After winning both the men’s 200m IM and 100m free on day one, Scott tried the 100m back/200m free double on for size.
In the 100m back, an off-event for the superstar, Scott stopped the clock at a time of 56.49 to capture the bronze. His time was about half a second off his lifetime best of 55.98 established at the 2017 edition of this competition.
Taking the men’s 1back gold was 24-year-old Scott Gibson of Edinburgh who touched in 55.79 as the sole sub-56-second swimmer of the field. Behind him for silver was Zach Speakman who notched 56.27.
Scott upgraded to silver in the men’s 200m free where he hit a mark of 1:47.70. That was .24 behind winner and fellow Paris Olympic teammate Jack McMillan who got to the wall first in 1:47.54.
Evan Jones, also of Stirling, bagged bronze in 1:49.20.
Scott and McMillan were among the top finishers in the men’s 200m free at this year’s Aquatics GB Olympic Trials. World champion Matt Richards (1:44.69) was the top performer at that April affair with Scott as the runner-up (1:44.75). McMillan placed 5th (1:46.19) and was discretionarily selected to the Olympic roster by the British coaching brain trust.
On the women’s side, Kathleen Dawson got it done for gold in the 100m back as a pre-Olympic primer.
27-year-old Dawson punched a result of 1:00.65 to clear the field by about a second. Stirling teammates Holly McGill and Caitlin Ebbage rounded out the podium, with the former logging 1:01.66 to the latter’s 1:03.23.
Dawson earned an Olympic bid in the 1back courtesy of the 59.74 she produced at Trials. That represented her first sub-minute outing in the event since the postponed 2020 Olympic Games.
Katie Shanahan hit a mark of 4:38.76 to take the women’s 400m IM, a result within 2 seconds of her 4:36.67 best-ever performance from Trials.
On her performance, the Steve Tigg-trained star stated, “That’s the fastest I’ve been all season outside of trials.
“I found out I had glandular fever at the end of May which put a bit of a hold on everything I was doing so I’m just glad to be back in the water and I feel so much better after that.
“I was a bit worried coming in to be honest because the 400m IM is not the event you want to be doing with glandular fever. I just want to keep safe and make sure I’m not picking anything else up, there’s only four weeks until the big dance.” (Scottish Swimming)
Additional Notes
- 20-year-old Lucy Grieve shaved .01 off her previous lifetime best to register 26.69 as the top women’s 50m butterflier. That ties Keanna MacInnes‘ Scottish Record from this year’s BUCS competition.
- The men’s 400m IM saw George Smith turn in a time of 4:20.93 as the gold medalist.
- Olympic qualifier Lucy Hope produced a winning effort of 1:59.66 as the sole sub-2:00 swimmer in the women’s 200m freestyle event.
