Double Olympic champion Tom Dean is unfazed by his run of second-place finishes at the Commonwealth Games after Kyle Chalmers claimed the men’s 100 metres freestyle title.
Chalmers put a finger to his lips after clocking 47.51 seconds to win the final, seemingly a gesture in response to reports of a fractious fallout with Australian team-mates Cody Simpson and Emma McKeon.
Dean was runner-up in 47.89secs, edging Scotland’s Duncan Scott into third in 48.27s, while the Londoner later collected his fifth silver in recent days in the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay.
While he was the first British male swimmer to win two Olympic golds at the same Games in 113 years in Tokyo, he insisted he is satisfied with his Birmingham results as he looks towards Paris 2024.
“I’m really happy with that, another silver medal. You can never complain at another medal on the international stage,” he said. “It isn’t a setback in my eyes.
“On top of that it is a stepping stone towards the Olympics, that’s what we do it for, that’s the pinnacle of the sport.
“While the home crowd is incredible and the Commonwealth Games is important, the Olympics takes precedence in our competitive schedule. That’s definitely the ultimate thing for us.”
Maisie Summers-Newton added a first Commonwealth Games gold medal to the several she has won at the Paralympics, World and European Championships by winning the women’s 100m breaststroke SB6 final.
“I definitely put the pressure more on myself 100 per cent,” said Summers-Newton after finishing first in a time of one minute and 32.72 seconds, nearly 11 seconds ahead of her English team-mate Grace Harvey, who took second place.
“But I’ve now achieved everything that I’ve ever wanted to achieve so from now, it’s progressing on the little things, seeing how much better we can get and just having fun. That’s what it’s all about.”
Harvey clinched silver just two and a half weeks on from testing positive for Covid-19, which she feared would derail her medal hopes.
“It was quite frustrating,” said Harvey, who revealed she was laid low for three months after first testing positive for coronavirus after last year’s Tokyo Paralympics.
“But I’m really happy with that time so I don’t think it had a detrimental effect.”
Abbey Wood took bronze in the women’s 200m individual medley, won by 15-year-old Canadian Summer McIntosh, who added the crown to the title she won in the 400m discipline.
Katie Shanahan was also a bronze medallist in the women’s 200m backstroke – her second of the Games – while her Scotland team-mates finished third in the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay, making Scott the most decorated Commonwealth Games athlete in the country’s history with 11 medals.
