James Guy opens up about European Championships slump ahead of Rio 2016 Olympics
WORLD CHAMPION James Guy rescued a bronze medal in the 200m freestyle at the European Championships in London last night - then explained why he is not at his best for the continental showdown.
Great Britain's James Guy after securing a bronze medal in the 200m freestyle
Guy, 20, who slumped to 27th in Monday's 400m freestyle when he swam bearded and in regular trunks, said: "A lot of guys have this as their trials for the Olympic Games.
"But we've had ours. Rio is the goal and I didn't want to jeopardise two weeks of fitness.
"I wanted to train through, race hard and race fast.
"Last week I was doing PBs in the gym. Tomorrow I'm doing two 5.5k sets in the pool.
"But I also didn't want to let the public down and the medal is important.
"The 400 was a bit of an off - I tried something and it didn't work.
"But this was a great race for me."
Guy's bronze-winning time of 1:46.42 behind the Netherlands' Sebastian Verschuren (1:46.02) and Serbia's Velimir Stjepanovic (1:46.26) was 1.23secs slower than his time from last month's Olympic trials, which tops the 2016 world rankings.
But he added: "I'm pleased with the time considering the work I'm doing."
Cardiff's Chloe Tutton won her first international medal as she took bronze behind Lithuania's Plymouth-based Olympic champion Ruta Meilutyte in the 100m breaststroke.
Chloe Tutton took bronze in the 100m breaststroke at the European Championships
Tutton, 19, who lowered her personal best to 1:07.50 despite training through the meet, said: "That was incredible. I didn't expect to do a best time.
"And to land a bronze as well is more than I could have dreamed of."
Earlier Italy's Gregorio Paltrinieri became the second fastest 1500m freestyler in history as he slashed 5.63 seconds off his European record with a winning time of 14min 34.04sec.
Britain's Jazz Carlin began the defence of her 800m freestyle title by qualifying second for tonight's (Thurs) final.
And Siobhan-Marie O'Connor and Hannah Miley went through second and third quickest to the 200m individual medley final behind world champion Katinka Hosszu of Hungary.