SWIMMERS TAKE FOURTH PLACE IN TOUGH RELAY FINAL
Britain's swimmers finished in fourth place in this evening's
4x200m Freestyle final at the European Swimming Championships
in Eindhoven.
In their heat the swimmers, David Carry (Aberdeen Dolphins),
Andrew Hunter (Stirling Swimming), Euan Dale (Loughborough
University) and Ross Davenport (Loughborough University),
took third place to finish fourth fastest overall.
Carry swam the first leg well and kept up with the fast pace
of the Italian team, Hunter took over and carried on the team's
promising start positioning the team in fourth place just
0.30 seconds behind the Austrian team.
But when Italy began to increase the pace of the race in
the third leg it proved too much for Dale and when Davenport
took over he found the ground too much to make up and the
boys finished in fourth place with a time of 7:14.95 seconds.
"It's disappointing but understandable because we are
not rested at this stage," Carry said. "We never
like to get beaten but we are all looking to qualify for the
Olympics and there are a lot of guys going for a few places."
The gold medal was claimed by the Italians in 7:09.94 seconds,
silver was taken by Russia in 7:11.70, while bronze was won
by Austria in 7:13.99.
This evening saw further disappointment for the British contingent
competing at the European Championships when young Thomas
Daley (Plymouth Diving) and his synchro partner Blake Aldridge
(Southampton Diving) had their first taste of defeat since
their partnership began just six months ago.
The pair, competing in the final of the 10m Platform synchro,
did not look their best throughout the final, but managed
to keep up with the leaders in the first two rounds.
The pair then found it hard to challenge for a medal after
they lost marks on both their inward 3 ½ somersaults
tuck and their back 3 ½ somersaults tuck.
The British pair finished in 6th place overall with a total
of 412.90 points.
"We are obviously disappointed with that performance
but everyone has an off day," Daley said. "We just
weren't on it today. But I am going to use this as inspiration
to go out and perform better tomorrow in the 10m Platform
individual."
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