Another Hickman record

Swimming

James Hickman continued his record-breaking at the British Championships in Sheffield yesterday, when he broke his own British record for the second time in the 24 hours to win the 100 metres butterfly gold.

The 20-year-old, who improved his 10-month-old best by a quarter of a second on Thursday, lowered the record by another 0.3sec yesterday. He clocked 53.03sec, finishing nearly a second ahead of the Ukrainian Pavlo Khnykin.

Leeds' Claire Huddart beat the former world short-course champion Karen Pickering to take the women's 200m freestyle. The 24-year-old won in 2:00.06, only 0.03sec ahead of Pickering, to win her first winter title after finishing second and third in recent years.

Earlier, Ian Wilson had created a piece of history by being crowned the first British Swimming Champion in the renamed tournament. Wilson, in fact, captured his seventh winter title in the 1500m freestyle. The City of Leeds swimmer took advantage of the absence of the Olympic bronze medallist Graeme Smith, who withdrew after the heats to concentrate on the 200m final, by lapping all the other finalists.

Wilson, 26 yesterday, finished more than two lengths of the 25-metre pool and nearly 40 seconds ahead Glenn Hudson of Portsmouth in 14min 47.73sec.

Charlotte Niblett celebrated her 19th birthday by taking 3.5sec off her own Welsh record to win the women's 400m individual medley gold.

Andrew Clayton, the defending champion, was also in record-breaking mood as he overshadowed the Olympic medal pair, Graeme Smith and Paul Palmer, in the 200m freestyle. Clayton beat the five-year-old British record of Paul Howe by just one-hundredth of a second to win in 1:46.70 with Mark Stevens second, and Gavin Meadows third.