Swimming: Easy for Rebecca as she adds 800m freestyle to title haul

Rebecca ADLINGTON claimed her third gold medal of the British Gas Swimming Championships in Manchester with an easy win in the 800m freestyle.

The double Olympic Champion in Beijing already had the 200m and 400m freestyle gold medals tucked away and her time of 2:20.23 clinched a great hat-trick.

"It was a hard race but I hoped it might be a bit closer," said 22-year-old Adlington after cruising to victory over Jaz Carlin, who set a Welsh record of 8:25.27. "It's hard when you are so far out in front."

Looking ahead to the World Championships in Shanghai this summer, she continued: "I've not done too well at the last two worlds so I hope I can change that this year. And then it will be on to London and the Olympics next year." Edinburgh University's Kathryn Johnstone raised her hopes of becoming the fifth Scot to win a title by leading the qualifiers in the 50m breaststroke.

The event is not part of the Olympic programme and the 20-year-old is trying to improve on the longer distances but she showed great form to touch in 32.32. The second fastest was England's Lowri Tynan in 32.63.

Stephanie Proud was a shock winner of the 200m backstroke, holding off favourite and English colleague Lizzie Simmonds by over two seconds with a World Championship qualifying time of 2:09.41.

Kieran McGuckin (Edinburgh University) and Craig McNally (Warrender) both qualified for the 50m backstroke semi-finals but failed to make tonight's final.