On the final day of the FINA World Swimming Championships in Shanghai yesterday, Scotland’s Hannah Miley clinched the first World Championship medal of her career, winning silver in the 400m individual medley and building on her success of 2010.

The 21-year old from Inverurie is Commonwealth and European champion in the event and qualified for the final in seventh spot. In the final she swam the race of her life, turning in sixth place at the half way mark but produced an excellent breaststroke leg to move up the field to third for the final 100m. Miley’s freestyle was strong and she quickly began to catch up and then overhaul Australia’s Olympic champion Stephanie Rice in the last five metres and touch in 4min 23.22sec.

America’s Elizabeth Beisel took gold in 4:31.78 while Rice was just 0.01 behind Miley, touching in 4:32.23 for bronze.

“As soon as I turned, I didn’t see Stephanie but I thought I’ve got to get a medal, even if it’s bronze,” said Miley.

“I knew the girl from China would come back hard in the free so I was kicking my little legs for dear life at the end.

“It’s an amazing feeling.

“The Europeans were awesome and at the Commonwealths I was really glad to get a medal but this is the next closest to the Olympics.

“It’s great I can get these performances.

“It just shows the hard work we’ve been putting in.
It rounded off a strong showing in the pool from Great Britain at the event with two gold and three silver medals in the pool and a gold in the open water to finish sixth on the overall medal table.

There were strong performances by a number of the other six Scots on the team with Commonwealth silver medallists Michael Jamison making his first ever World final, finnishing and impressive fifth in the 200m breaststroke and contributing to a sixth place finish in the 4x100m medley relay.

The Scottish trio of David Carry, Robbie Renwick and Jak Scott also finished sixth in the 4x200m freestyle relay as did the women with Caitlin McClatchey part of the team.