Battling bronze for Jazz Carlin at World Swimming Championships
Jazz Carlin won a fourth medal of the week for University of Bath-based swimmers at the FINA World Championships in Kazan, Russia when she bagged a gutsy 800m freestyle bronze on Saturday.
Carlin, who finished an agonising fourth in the 400m final on Sunday, fought all the way to claim the first individual World medal of her career in 8:18.15 – just two-tenths of a second ahead of Australia’s Jessica Ashwood.
USA’s Katie Ledecky stormed to victory in a world record time of 8:07.39 and New Zealand’s Lauren Boyle claimed silver in 8:17.65.
Carlin, who moved to the British Swimming National Centre Bath in December, was also part of the 4x200m freestyle relay quartet which finished fifth earlier this week so was delighted to finally get on the podium.
“This week really has been an emotional rollercoaster,” said Carlin, the Commonwealth and European champion.
“I had to pick myself up after finishing fourth at the start of the week. I was happy with my split in the relay so really it was just about coming in with my head down.
“Obviously I would have liked to finish higher and gone a bit quicker but I’m absolutely over the moon to come away with a bronze medal at the end of the week.”
Carlin’s result takes the British Swimming team to a record medal haul at a World Championships, surpassing their previous best tally of eight medals from 1975 and 2003.
Training partners Chris Walker-Hebborn and Siobhan-Marie O’Connor won gold in the mixed 4x100m medley earlier this week, while University of Bath graduate Calum Jarvis helped the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay quartet to a stunning victory on Friday.
Walker-Hebborn went mighty close to a second medal on Sunday as part of a men’s 4x100m medley quartet which finished just 0.17secs off the podium.
They were given a great start in the backstroke leg by Walker-Hebborn, then triple gold-medallist Adam Peaty produced a stunning backstroke performance to establish the lead.
Freestyle champion James Guy produced a strong butterfly leg to hand over in second to Ben Proud, who wasn’t quite able to hold off France in the sprint for the wall.
However, the time of 3:30.67 was a new British record and less than a second behind the gold-medallists from the USA. Silver went to Australia.
