Abbie Wood, Poppy Maskill and Duncan Scott all won breath-taking races on night two of the 2025 Aquatics GB Swimming Championships in London, as more Singapore World Championship places were booked.
Wood and Max Litchfield triumphed in the 400m Individual Medley contests and dipped inside the World Championship selection times, Scott charged down the final 50m to claim his maiden Men's 200m Butterfly British title - inside the Singapore mark - and Maskill edged past Georgia Sheffield in a thrilling multi-classification (MC) Women's 100m Backstroke, both athletes doing the S14 consideration time.
It was the Women's 400m IM that provided the most dramatic finale in front of a raucous London Aquatics Centre crowd, as Loughborough Performance Centre teammates Wood and Freya Colbert provided the entertainment - the former building a good lead early in the race and into the freestyle leg, only for reigning champion Colbert to claw back that advantage with every stroke down the final 75m. Ultimately, Abbie held on by less than 0.2s to go inside the 4:37.84 World Championship selection time and claim her individual seat on the plane to Singapore after being part of the 4x200m Freestyle Relay booking on Tuesday, with Freya also doing the time. Behind them, young Amalie Smith swam brilliantly for a bronze medal - but it was Abbie's new personal best of 4:36.66 that did the job.
"I want to do that event at Worlds, it'll just be a free hit at the end of the week, so why not? Freya and I quite complement each other, I think we expected Freya to pull away on the backstroke and then me on the breaststroke, but because we were both trying to cancel out our weaknesses, we were actually closer together the whole way than we thought," said Abbie in assessing the race afterwards.
"Getting big personal bests in the short-course season put a fire in my belly and it's been refreshing to have a different focus. It can get quite repetitive having the same events, so I’ve been enjoying the 400 IM training – which is weird to say!"
The Men's 400m Individual Medley saw three-time Olympic finalist Litchfield defend his 2024 title and secure another World Championship place after an intriguing battle with Charlie Hutchison, which saw Max nudge ahead on the breaststroke leg and then show superb freestyle pacing to move clear and get to the wall inside the 4:11.90 required time.
Hutchison claimed another silver in this event, with George Smith completing the podium placings.
In the Women's MC 100m Backstroke, S14 rivals and friends Maskill and Sheffield lined up in the centre lanes, targeting a time quicker than 1:07.01 to go inside their classification's Para Swimming World Championship selection mark, as well as that British gold medal.
Sheffield took the early lead and was nearly half-a-second up at the turn, only for supreme racer Maskill - a five-time Paralympic medallist last summer - to do the business over the final lap and win the British title in 1:05.67, with Sheffield doing a 1:06.46 for silver - Ela Letton-Jones (S12) took bronze.
"That was really hard but I'm really happy with that time, so that's good. There wasn't a lot [specifically going through my mind] during the race - it was a hard swim and I enjoy racing alongside Georgia," said Poppy.
Katie Shanahan was the victor in the Women's 100m Backstroke finale that closed out the night. In a strong field, all eight athletes turned within 0.8s of each other, with Shanahan and Lauren Cox ultimately taking it on for gold in the centre lanes. Katie, a 200m medallist at European level, kept her stroke rate to the wall to claim gold in a new personal best time - her second of the day - with Cox in silver and Katie's University of Stirling training partner Holly McGill taking bronze.
On a night filled with nip-and-tuck contests, Duncan Scott pulled clear of an impressive Ed Mildred swim late in the Men's 200m Butterfly to add another British title to the ever-growing haul of this most versatile of athletes.
Mildred took things out fast, but Scott held on in the second and third laps and then moved past Mildred down the home straight, driving to the wall in 1:54.89 - not far off the British record. For a second time in the day, Ed clocked a new PB (of 1:56.2) as he drops big time, while James Guy came back after his 400m Freestyle title to win bronze here.
"I wouldn't say I really enjoy swimming the 200m Butterfly, I would question if Kristof Milák even enjoys it! But I enjoy the competitive aspect, it’s an absolute honour racing Jimmy and respect for what he’s done, I just love racing him. I’ve got the utmost respect to be racing these two guys. Ed has gone a number of years without a PB, and this morning laying down something really good and to back it up with another PB tonight," said Duncan.
Max Morgan became a British champion for the first time as the 17-year-old sprinted to a thrilling Men's 50m Breaststroke gold by 0.07s ahead of Archie Goodburn, 24 hours after winning silver in the 100m. Harvey Phillips took the gold in the multi-classification contest.
"It's amazing, I never thought I'd be a British champion, especially this soon, so I'm buzzing. I think I was more relaxed tonight, I put quite a lot of pressure on myself the first night, so I'm happy and I feel I dealt with it better," said Morgan.
Meanwhile, 16-year-old Amelie Blocksidge won the Women's 1500m Freestyle gold for a third successive year, dictating the race from the start to open her meet with the win. Fleur Lewis secured silver after a strong finish to the race, with Olympian Leah Crisp in bronze.
Full results from day two of the Aquatics GB Swimming Championships are here.