GB sign off atop medal chart

By Paul Carter

Great Britain’s swimmers signed off in spectacular fashion on the final day of the IPC Swimming European Championships as they topped the medal table in Reykjavik.

The GB team ended the competition with an impressive haul of 39 gold medals, along with 32 silver and 23 bronze.

On the sixth and last day of competition, both the men’s and women’s relay teams picked up gold.

In the men’s 34 point 4x100m freestyle relay, the British team of Matthew Walker, Graham Edmunds, Jonathan Fox and Robert Welbourn fought to secure the victory over the Spanish team, despite being without multi-Paralympic gold medallist Dave Roberts, who withdrew prior to the championships with injury.

“The good thing about this team is that we are always up for the big events,” Edmunds said.

“We lost Dave Roberts through injury and that meant that Jonathan Fox had to step in and he more than proved himself this week with his excellent performances.

“It is always brilliant hearing the national anthem and it was great hearing all of the supporters singing it with us.”

The women’s 34 point 4x100m relay team consisting of Eleanor Simmonds, Louise Watkin, Stephanie Millward and Lauren Steadman smashed the European record by 16 seconds on their way to winning gold, marking Simmonds fifth in total.

 “It is really amazing to have won that race,” Steadman said.

“We all worked really hard as a team. We had heard what the boys had done and it really inspired us out there. We were racing the clock for a lot of that race but we got the European record and next we will look at the world record.”

In addition to Simmonds, Paralympic champion Heather Frederiksen also claimed five golds in total, while Louise Watkin picked up four.

Head Coach Lars Humer said: “It was great to finish the event with the two relay performances. This has been a great result for all of us and it was down to a real team effort.

“What was really pleasing is that we had a crop of youngsters that stood up here and did a good job but we also saw good performances from some of our other athletes too.