Double for Renwick as Scots swimmers focus on Shanghai

City of Glasgow’s Robbie Renwick collected his second gold medal on the final day of the Scottish Gas National Championships at Glasgow’s Tollcross Leisure Centre to complete a successful four days for Scotland’s World Championship swimmers.

Renwick is one of seven Scots in the GB team for the Worlds in Shanghai at the end of this month, and the Commonwealth Games champion cruised to victory in the 200m freestyle in 1:48.17. He won the 400m title on Friday.

“Its been a good few days and nice to get some tough, last-minute racing before heading to China,” said the 23-year-old. “I’m happy with my performances and now just looking forward to getting away to the training camp in Japan and starting to rest up before the championships.”

Hannah Miley, who will be Scotland’s main medal contender in Shanghai in three weeks’ time, beat Spain’s world No 1 Mireia Belmonte to win the 400m individual medley on the opening day, and Michael Jamieson showed his form with a breaststroke double.

The Bath-based Scot won the 100m on Saturday in 1:02.59, but it is the 200m that he holds out most hope of a podium appearance at the Worlds. “That is the work done now,” he said. “I am still in training and these championships have been really hard.

“But I’m delighted with the times and my form. I do think I’ve got a chance of a medal in Shanghai and that would be the perfect start to the countdown to next year’s Olympics in London.”

Jak Scott was the fourth World Championship Scot on show – he will be making his major championship debut as a member of the 4x100m freestyle relay squad. He picked up a bronze medal in the 50m freestyle on Saturday and just missed out in the 200m. He finished fourth behind Renwick.

The experienced trio of Kris Gilchrist, Caitlin McClatchey and David Carry are the other three Scots in the Shanghai line-up and they will be joining their team mates on the flight to Japan a week tomorrow.

Warrender’s Lewis Smith just missed out on the British selection, but he had reason to feel satisfied with three gold medals. He won both the 200m individual medley and the 800m freestyle on Saturday and made it a hat-trick with victory in the 400m medley yesterday.

Smith, who is a student at Stirling University, suffered a hiccup when the Stirling coach, Doug Frost, resigned early this year. But he is now back training under Iain Wright and is only looking to the future.

“Obviously, I was extremely disappointed to miss out on Shanghai,” admitted the 23-year-old, who competed in the 2009 World Championships in Rome. “But I’ve been selected for the World University Games in China in August and that is a really big event.

“Then it will be all about moving forward to the Olympic Games. It’s the one everyone wants – an Olympics at home.”

Smith won the 400m medley in 4:20.42 and finished seven seconds ahead of Taki Mrabet, a Tunisian who medalled at the African championships. In the 800m freestyle, Smith set a personal best of 8:04.75.

“The freestyle is newer to me but I enjoy swimming the events and it is good to make use of my wide range of training that is needed in the medley,” he added.

Richard Shafers was one of the new names to make a mark. The Edinburgh University 20-year-old set a Scottish record of 22.63 secs in the 50m freestyle and will have a chance to go even faster at the Irish championship in Dublin later this month.