Olympic heartache forgotten as Dickons claims bronze

Apr 10 2008 The Journal

BOROUGH of Stockton’s Jess Dickons put the disappointment of her Olympic non-qualification behind her last night to grab Britain’s first medal at the World Short Course Championships in Manchester.

The 17-year-old took bronze in the 200m butterfly in 2:05.09 – a time that also toppled the British record set by club-mate Jemma Lowe in the heats. Lowe, 18, who is going to Beijing, went out fast and led for much of the final but faded as first America’s Mary Descenza, then Australian Felicity Galvez and finally Dickons herself came past.

Lowe, who qualified for the Olympics in both the 100 and 200m butterfly, ended up fourth in 2:05.09. Former European junior champion Dickons said: “I was disappointed after swimming so badly at the Olympic trials in Sheffield but tonight was much better and I recorded a 1.5sec PB.

“I’ve had a bad year. Last summer I fractured my back and was out of the water for two months. I’ve had to work so hard to get back to this level.

“This is a really big competition – it will be my biggest for a while. So to come here and do this means everything to me.”

Lowe said: “I thought I would go for it from the start but I died at the end. The main target for me was the Olympic trials last week.”

Derwentside’s Joanne Jackson led followed in her sister Nicola’s footsteps by leading Britain to a medal in a thrilling women’s 4x200m freestyle relay. Eight years ago in Athens, the elder Jackson was in the British team which broke the world record in this event to win gold in Athens.

The record had dropped by three seconds since then but last night the new British quartet of Jackson, Mel Marshall, Caitlin McClatchey and Becky Adlington were among three teams which all went at least seven seconds inside even that time in what could be a rehearsal for the Olympic final.

The Netherlands took the gold in 7:38.90, Britain the silver in 7:38.96 and Australia the bronze in 7:39.01. Jackson, who recorded a personal best 1:54.78 to give Britain a lead on the first leg, said: “We’ve moved on since my sister’s time. We are really happy with our performance but disappointed we didn’t win the gold. We were quite a long way under the old world record and we smashed the British record.”

Adlington, who almost caught the Dutch swimmer in the closing metres, said: “I think we are stronger in a 50m pool so it’s looking good for the Olympics. We will also be a bit more rested then that we are after just doing the Olympic trials.”

Scottish teenager Hannah Miley also went inside a world record to give Britain a second silver medal. The 18-year-old from Garioch recorded 4min 27.27sec –the second-fastest time in history – to come second behind Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry, whose time was 4:26.52.

ROGER GUTTRIDGE