Freya Anderson strikes gold with freestyle double

Freya Anderson completed a freestyle double with victory in the 200m at the European Short Course Swimming Championships in Glasgow.

The 18-year-old Shropshire swimmer, who secured her maiden individual medal at this level and a European title with an impressive victory in the 100m freestyle on Friday, clocked a new national record of 1:52.77 in the 200m final.

That was 0.11 of a second quicker than Italy’s Federica Pellegrini, with Holland’s Femke Heemskerk taking bronze.

Ellesmere Titan Anderson then added a silver medal to her haul when she teamed up with Duncan Scott, Scott McLay and Anna Hopkin in the 4x50m freestyle final.

The British quartet finished 0.33secs behind gold medal winners Russia.

Anderson said: “It’s just amazing – I really didn’t expect it.

“Even when I touched the wall and looked around I saw the one by my name I was like ‘what!?’.

“I’m really happy with how I managed to pace my race and come back hard on the last 50m.

“I knew how a few of the others would swim it and thought if I could be with them at around the 150m mark I could make my move.

“It’s a tactical race the 200m free so I had to keep looking around whilst also focusing on my own race.

“I’ve never been good at short course and I’ve been working on my turns and skills for years, so to finally see it paying off is really rewarding. The crowd were amazing and even when I finished and looked up everyone was just so happy, it was really nice to see that.

“I saw my parents in the crowd, they weren’t here on Friday, so it was amazing to see them up there.”

Anderson was sixth with 50m left to swim, before producing a final 50m that was over a second quicker than anyone else in the race to take the title.

Timed to perfection, she overhauled Pellegrini with her final few strokes to obliterate Fran Halsall’s British record that has stood for 10 years.

The men led the relay team off, with all of their rivals taking the same approach.

Hopkin produced an outrageous swim, which would later be confirmed as the fastest female split of the race, to mean Anderson would enter the water neck and neck with her rivals.

With the two gold medals to her name already, the Ellesmere swimmer delivered a blistering anchor securing silver to the home crowd’s delight.

Anderson just missed out on another medal when she came home fourth in the 400m freestyle final.

After looking good in qualifying, Anderson swam the race in her usual style -conservative early on before finishing strongly.

Out in lane one the youngster was slightly isolated and away from the race in the centre lanes, but finished strongly to record a personal best.

She added: “I certainly didn't come into this expecting anything but I'm really happy, what more could I have asked for this week!

"I found it quite hard being in the outside lane as I couldn't really see anything that was going on, but I'm happy with a PB and with how I swam it.”