‘Outsider’ Wilby thrilled after storming to victory

JAMES WILBY stole in from the outside lane to claim gold in the 200 metres breaststroke at the European Aquatics Championships in Rome last night. The Glasgow-born Englishman had given every impression of being worn down by the exhaustive schedule of this summer that has already taken in World Championships and Commonwealth Games.

Nothing, surely, could top the astonishing victory over 100m in Birmingham that saw Adam Peaty’s nine-year winning streak brought to a jaw-dropping end. But the 28-year-old raised himself from the depths to grab his first individual continental crown in a time of 2:08.96. He said: ‘I said to myself straight after the semi-final: “Why do I keep doing this to myself?”, sometimes cutting it a bit fine in the outside lane.

‘But I knew coming into this evening it would be a case of racing my own race, sticking to the process and that would deliver a good result. It’s an advantage in the fact they can’t see what I’m doing, but then a disadvantage in that I couldn’t see what they were doing. ‘It was a real wrestle down that last length, but I executed my process just like I wanted to.

I came away with the gold and I’m so happy with that.’ There was a silver for Freya Anderson in the women’s 200m freestyle and a bronze for the British quartet of Tom Dean, Jacob Whittle, Matt Richards and Ed Mildred in the men’s 4x100m freestyle.

Stirling’s Keanna MacInnes stunned herself by qualifying for tonight’s women’s 100m butterfly final with a Scottish record of 58.55 seconds, while Kara Hanlon’s first senior GB outing brought the Western Islander 10th place overall in the women’s 200m breaststroke semis, missing the final by just 0.2secs.