Swimming: Miley and Jamieson winners in Leeds

While Miley was enjoying an authoritative victory, Olympic silver medallist Michael Jamieson took the 100m breaststroke title from an outside lane at the John Charles Centre for Sport.

On Thursday, Miley found herself in the unaccustomed position of being beaten by a domestic rival when she was second behind Siobhan-Marie O’Connor in the 200m individual medley. Last night, she returned for her favoured 400m event and was 1.74secs adrift of fellow Olympian Aimee Willmott at halfway.

However, the 23-year-old Scot reeled in her rival to lead going into the freestyle leg in which Miley went almost three seconds faster than Willmott. At first glance, it is notable that her time of four minutes 35.57 seconds was just 1.40secs outside her fifth place at last year’s Olympics and this unrested with a heavy racing programme.

However, the Garioch swimmer works in hard facts and immediately pointed to the need in international competition to swim fast in the heats when they and the final are held on the same day.

Miley said: “The difference between that is that I didn’t go a 4:47 in the heats in London – I went a 4:34 – so there is a big difference between going hard in the heats and then having to swim hard again. The fact I kind of played about and took it quite easy in the morning meant I could go a lot faster – but I didn’t expect to go that quick.

“Recently, I went a 4:36 and that was quite surprising, I didn’t think I would go anywhere near that time. It’s nice I’ve gone a little bit quicker – again, I swam it a little bit different.”

Jamieson had only just scraped into his final after finishing joint eighth with Russell Smith, having eased up on the second length of his morning heat, necessitating a swim-off. That placed him in lane eight, from where a swimmer has no awareness of what is happening among the fastest qualifiers in the centre.

However, that had little effect as the Glasgow-based swimmer held off a fast-finishing Craig Steeples to win in one minute 0.82 seconds.

The 25-year-old, who was sporting a wispy beard, said: “I’m pretty happy with that, especially after this morning with an error of judgement in the heats and I had to do an extra 100. This meet is more about the racing than the time – some are rested, some aren’t, some are shaved, some aren’t. I didn’t want to let this [the beard] go because it’s taken me a month to grow it.”

Jamieson trains under coach Dave McNulty at Bath ITC, which has become something of a magnet since his Olympic silver medal, with team-mate Andrew Willis eighth in that final in London. Since the summer a number of swimmers have beaten a path to McNulty’s door, something Jamieson welcomes.

He said: “It is such a professional group and I’m delighted for all the coaching staff and the support staff.”

One of Bath’s new arrivals, Joe Roebuck, underlined the benefits of his move when he added the 200m butterfly title to the 100m he had already won.

The 27-year-old led from the off to touch in 1:57.74 and said of Bath: “I’ve been training with the university group so it’s half the numbers, which means you get more attention.”

Ben Proud was the first Briton home behind American 2000 Olympic champion Anthony Ervin in the 50m freestyle and Dan Fogg, fifth in London, won the 1,500m freestyle.

Molly Renshaw fell foul of a convoluted selection policy last year which saw her miss out on a place on the Olympic team. The youngster, the baby of the 2011 World Championship team, won the 200m breaststroke.

Rebecca Turner won the 200m freestyle, Georgia Davies added the 100m backstroke title to the 50m and Fran Halsall was second in the 50m butterfly.