Great Britain land six medals on opening night of Glasgow 2015 IPC Swimming Worlds
Glasgow-born Andrew Mullen won silver in front of a home crowd as Great Britain landed six medals from six finals on the opening night of the Glasgow 2015 IPC Swimming World Championships at Tollcross.
The 20-year old was one of five silver medallists for the British Para-Swimming team on day one in Scotland as Ellie Simmonds, James Crisp, Scott Quin and Tully Kearney also finished second while Susie Rodgers was other British medallist with bronze.
Mullen, who learned to swim at Tollcross, took the challenge to defending champion Daniel Dias in the S5 50m Backstroke final; the Brazilian having won the past two World and Paralympic crowns.
And while Mullen, who set a European record 37.29 in the heats, pushed Dias to one of the best times of his career, the Scot settled for silver on 37.68 behind the Brazilian’s Championship record 35.34.
And he admitted it had been a humbling experience to land a World Championship medal in his hometown pool:
“I feel in good form coming into this meet so to go a PB is a good way to start it off.
“Hopefully I can carry that momentum on to some of my other events later this week.
“It’s very humbling winning a World medal where I first learned to swim and I’m really pleased to be able to do that in front of my friends and family.”
Simmonds faced Ukraine’s European 50m and 100m Freestyle champion Yelyzaveta Mereshko in the S6 400m Freestyle final.
The Ukranian edged narrowly clear in the final 20m - while Simmonds came home in 5:22.24, the second fastest time of her career behind her world record 5:19.17 at London 2012, Mereshko held off the Brit to take victory in 5:21.76.
Simmonds said:
“I gave the best that I could on the day to be honest. It was my best time since London 2012. It didn’t get me the gold medal today but you can’t always get it.
“I did everything that I could on the day and it just wasn’t good enough to win the gold medal.
“I’ve been a gold medallist in this event at every Championship since 2008 so it’s hard but I’m going to go back tomorrow and get ready for the 100m Breaststroke which is fun event and there’s no pressure on me at all.
“This might have knocked me back but I’m going to go out stronger for my other races this week.”
