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Great Britain’s impressive performance at the World Swimming Championships in Shanghai drew to a close with two more medals.
Liam Tancock’s dominant swim in the 50m backstroke secured him the team’s third gold, while Hannah Miley swam a great 400m individual medley to win silver with a time of 4:34.22.
Tancock beat European Champion Camille Lacourt of France by seven hundredths of a second with the South African Gerhard Zandberg in third. The 26-year-old Loughborough ITC swimmer said: "On the day it's who gets out there, who gets the best start and who touches the wall first, and today it was my turn. I loved it."
Of the race, he said: "I knew it was good, it felt pretty good. You know when you are having a good race. But I felt I had a great start. I knew I had to take the race to them if I wanted to win. It was my time tonight and it's special."
Tancock has now won five world medals since winning bronze in the same event on his senior international debut in Montreal in 2005. He puts his consistency down to his love of racing against the best in the world. When he returns to begin training for next March’s Olympic trials, he’ll concentrate on the 100m backstroke.
Hannah Miley fought back from eighth position after 100m to claim her silver medal, after American Elizabeth Beisel took gold in a time of 4:31.78.
The Garioch swimmer, who is coached by her father was overcome after the race, which marks her out as an international contender, after previously winning European and Commonwealth titles. "This is the closest thing to the Olympics. I'm so happy," she said. “I didn't realise how close it was until I saw the board. That last 50m is all a blur. It hurt so much. I'm so pleased with that. I would have liked to have done a 4:33 like I did at the Europeans but it was just a fantastic swim and a great way to end the season."
Miley’s win brought the total number of British medals to two golds and three silvers, in excess of the team target, just a year before the Olympics.
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