A star is born in Great Britain’s Freya Anderson, who held off a world-class field to win 100m freestyle gold at the LEN European Short Course Championships.
Anderson, 18, sealed a maiden international title with aplomb in front of a boisterous home crowd at Tollcross, a superb final two lengths underpinning a personal best 51.49.
The Liverpudlian, fifth at the halfway stage, bested Olympic champions in Italy’s Federica Pellegrini, Denmark’s Pernille Blume and Netherlands’ Femke Heemskerk.
“I’m shocked and happy,” said Anderson.
“I didn’t expect the medal in this event. I know there were big names in this event but big names don’t win races and I just wanted to compete with this great swimmers.”
The teenager emerged from the heats and the semi-finals as the fastest in the field, lowering her PB on both occasions. She is now second fastest Brit of all-time behind Fran Halsall.
EuroSwim isn’t over for her and Anna Hopkin, who finished fourth, the next generation of female freestyle. Anderson is entered in the 200m tomorrow and the 50m and 400m on Sunday.
It was a night of drama from start to finish with an exhilarating dead heat between Netherlands and France in the women’s 4x50m freestyle relay.
Anchored by Valerie van Roon and Anna Santamans respectively, the two countries couldn’t be separated at the wall, both touching at exactly 1:35.21.
Russia’s Vladimir Morozov is the king of all he surveys at EuroSwim, collecting fourth medal of the week and 20th at the event with a convincing 50m freestyle victory.
The returning Florent Manaudou simply couldn’t deal with the 27-year-old, who came home in 20.40, 0.26 ahead of the Frenchman and 0.36 ahead of Maksim Lobanovskii in bronze.
“I feel good, I wanted this gold. Racing against Manaudou is always motivating and now the mission is accomplished,” said Morozov.
“I wanted to break the world record but I’ve come a bit short. This is my fourth final and my fourth gold here so I’m really happy.”
It was another night that belonged to Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu, too, who grabbed two golds in the space of 45 minutes in the 200m butterfly and 100m individual medley.
There was no catching the Iron Lady in the fly, taking top step by nearly a second ahead of Italy’s Ilaria Bianchi, and a final 50m split of 30.95 formed the backbone of medley success.
“Wow, that was fun!” said the three-time Olympic champion, who won Hungary’s 1000th international medal.
“It’s an honour that I could win our 1000th medal. Obviously, this had to be a gold so I’m really happy to win this race.
“After so many years spent at this level, I kind of know that in a final like this I have to step up and I did that.”
A European record fell in the 200m individual medley, Greece’s Andreas Vazaios clocking 1:50.8 with Duncan Scott off the podium in fourth.
The battle for top spot in the medal table is shaping up nicely, too, as Russia and Italy go toe-to-toe at the summit.
As expected, Kliment Kolesnikov defended his 100m backstroke title, while Olympic champion Gregorio Paltrinieri pulled off a three-peat in the 1500m.
And Italy’s Margherita Panziera towered over Tollcross for the second year running, matching 2018 long-course gold with 200m backstroke honours in a national record time.
The two leading nations have both won 11 gold medals in the first three days of racing, with Hungary sitting third and Britain fourth.