Swimming: Spofforth in tears as title defence is dashed by illness

BRITISH Swimming head coach Dennis Pursley is satisfied with the Great Britain team's performance so far at the World Championships in Shanghai after a day when Gemma Spofforth's title defence came to an abrupt end through circumstances beyond her control.

The 23-year-old came into the event as the reigning 100 metres backstroke champion but sickness and diarrhoea on the eve of the championships left her listless and devoid of energy as she failed to make it through the heats in the first event of the day.

Open water champion Keri-Anne Payne also failed to reach the final of the 1,500m freestyle although she is a novice over the distance and admits she does not yet know how to pace the longest race in the pool.

Spofforth's exit from the competition was a major shock and came just 14 hours after Rebecca Adlington had given the team a great start to the pool programme with a 400m freestyle silver medal which displayed her ability to rise to the occasion.

The evening session at the Oriental Sports Centre then saw Ellen Gandy finish a highly-creditable fifth in the 100m butterfly with team-mate Jemma Lowe eighth while Hannah Miley was seventh in the 200m individual medley.

Loughborough ITC team-mates Liam Tancock and Lizzie Simmonds both reached their respective 100m backstroke finals but there were no other British qualifiers although Ross Davenport and Robbie Renwick both put up good performances in just failing to make the 200m freestyle final for which Michael Phelps went through fifth fastest.

Looking back at the last event in Rome in 2009, the team claimed two medals, courtesy of Jo Jackson and Adlington in the 400m freestyle, on the first night of competition before going on to claim a total of seven.

However, two of those came from Jackson who has since battled severe asthma and illness while she was also part of the 4x200m freestyle relay squad that took bronze.

The 61-year-old former head of United States swimming believes the team are on track for a good meet and his years of experience have taught him that circumstances beyond anyone's control will always play a part.

He said: "We are placing higher than when we came into the competition. We are ahead of Rome in the number of swimmers in finals after two days than we were then.

"We've got a lot of swims left in us. I've been doing this for many years and served on three national teams, I am yet to see one for which it all goes your way. Overall I am pretty pleased with that. I thought it would be quicker in a lot of events so it seems to be across the board."Spofforth held back the tears after the race, coming two years after her emotional win in Rome, a victory she had dedicated to her mother who died of cancer in December 2007.

Fifth at the halfway stage, the University of Florida swimmer failed to find her customary acceleration and instead dropped a further two places to finish in one minute 01.89 seconds.

It has been an emotionally demanding time for Spofforth whose father lost his partner, also to cancer, in March.

Spofforth's training and routine was also disrupted as she had to be away from her Florida home while she waited for her green card.

She said: "I've had a bad couple of days. I was quite sick on Saturday night and didn't eat much.

"I don't just put it down to that. I've had a bit of a bad year and I'm not feeling quite so motivated so hopefully this week will give me a kick up the butt to get me motivated for next year."

Last night's evening session was also notable for the victory by Cesar Cielo in the 50m butterfly, days after being cleared to swim by the Court of Arbitration for Sport despite a positive drugs test.

The Brazilian was overcome by emotion at the end of the race which saw Jason Dunford apparently do a thumbs-down gesture for which the Kenyan was called a "sore loser" by silver medallist Matthew Targett, a friend of Cielo's.