James Guy wins second gold in three days as Bath-based swimmers secure four medals at Japan Open
National Centre swimmers James Guy and Jessica Fullalove won four medals at the Japan Open Swimming Championships in Tokyo, Japan over the weekend in an encouraging preparation for this summer’s World Championships.
On the back of an intense nine-day training block in Thailand, Guy won his third medal of the Open with gold in the men’s 100m butterfly with a new personal best time of 51.50. The performance followed a gold-medal winning swim in the 400m freestyle and was the second time of the meet the 21-year old pushed his PB after an equally impressive swim in the 200m butterfly on Friday.
“That is a great time,” said Guy. “It’s a new personal best for me and is a bit of a surprise considering the workloads I’m currently under and off the back of a tough camp in Thailand.”
“It’s looking good for the summer. There’s more hard work to come but when I’m rested and tapered it will put me in a good place by the time Budapest comes around.”
Jessica Fullalove’s bronze in the 200m backstroke capped a successful Open for Bath-based swimmers.
Commenting on the competition and preceding preparation camp, British Swimming Head Coach Bill Furniss said: “This tour has ticked all of the boxes. It’s what we wanted to do – to travel east in year one of an Olympic cycle leading into Tokyo.
“We had a tough camp in Thailand and then came into a really difficult competition, stacked with a great depth of Japanese talent. We knew we would have to swim the event in a compromised state, off the back of some very hard work, but we were very close to a 100% strike rate of our swimmers moving it on from heats to finals and I’m delighted by this.
“I’m pleased with how the team has coped with the travel and it’s back to the UK now for a few days’ recovery before phase two begins, the hard work continues and we head to the Seven Hills meet in Rome next month.”
