Rebecca Adlington sealed her place in the 800 metres freestyle final this morning with a thrilling qualification victory at the World Swimming Championships in Shanghai.
It caps off a good week for the 22-year-old, who won silver in the 400m freestyle last Sunday.
Adlington completed the race in eight minutes and 22.27 seconds. Defending champion Lotte Friis was 0.80 seconds adrift in second place.
The victory will give Adlington confidence going into the finals, where she finished fourth last year.
She said: “I had no clue what time I was doing - I could have been doing an 8:40.
“It’s the quickest I’ve gone in the morning except for Beijing when you didn’t know whether it was morning or night anyway.
“The whole team is shocked by the depth just to get to finals. I just had to try to make sure I got through.”
The final is tomorrow night.
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