Peaty turns up the heat-y as arena swimmers enjoy more gold

Adam Peaty, Katinka Hosszu and Sarah Sjostrom were all on top of the podium as arena swimmers continued to strike gold at the European Championships in London.

Adam swam the third fastest time in history to retain the 100m breaststroke title he won in Berlin in 2014 before Katinka added gold in the 200m backstroke to the 400m individual medley crown she won on the first night with Sarah successfully defending her 50m butterfly crown.

At halfway Adam was only 0.17secs off the world record he set in the same lane of the same pool in April 2015.

He then lowered his own championships record by 0.32secs to win in 58.36secs, a time only he has bettered in  history and all the more impressive given he is in heavy training.

“To be honest I didn’t think I would break the minute,” he said.

“On Thursday I didn’t think I could even get out of my car I was so sore. I am in a great place and my stroke is in an even better place, probably the best it’s ever been, so who knows? Proper strong now and looking forward to the challenges I face in Rio.”

Katinka returned to the pool 24 hours after taking the long medley title to claim her first European 200m backstroke medal, winning in 2mins 07.01secs after leading from start to finish.

It lifts the Hungarian to fourth in the world rankings.

“I wanted to swim 2:07 and I clocked this time. I knew that Daryna is very fast on the last 50 metres so it turned into a very tough race at the end,” said Hosszu.

Sarah had won the first arena gold OF the evening as she flew to victory in the 50m butterfly in a time of 24.99.

It was her third consecutive title in the event in which she set the world record last summer and she was especially happy given she hardly had any turnaround time between races.

She beamed: “I didn’t expect such a fast time because I swam the 100m free semis ten minutes earlier. But it was a kind of warm-up for this final. Today I felt much better then in yesterday during the heats and the prelims.”

Fellow arena swimmer Fran Halsall was third, as in Berlin in 2014.

The ever-bubbly Briton said: “I am absolutely delighted to win a medal, you know a 50m fly is always a huge battle until the last stroke and I’m happy to finish in a podium place. I really enjoyed swimming and really enjoyed the support of the crowd.”

Fran then returned to swim the freestyle leg as Britain won the medley relay with Adam on the breaststroke.

Olympic champion Ruta Meilutyte produced a championship record in the 100m breaststroke semi-finals, clocking 1:06.16.

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