• FINA Swimming World Championships

Adlington takes World Championship silver medal

Rebecca Adlington was searching for her first World Championship gold medal in Shanghai © PA Photos

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• Profile: Rebecca Adlington

Rebecca Adlington, Great Britain's double Olympic champion, shook off a lacklustre semi-final performance to win the 400m freestyle silver medal at the World Championships on Sunday.

Adlington was forced to swim from the outside lane in Shanghai after qualifying in seventh, but she dealt with the hindrance superbly to finish second behind defending champion Federica Pellegrini.

The Brit had faced similar circumstances two years ago when she earned a bronze medal from the outside lane. Showing extra maturity, she this time clocked 4:04.01 to see off France's Camille Muffat who settled for third.

"I'm so pleased with that swim after this morning," commented Adlington. "I was quite down after my heat as I didn't expect to swim so slowly but I picked myself and that was much more positive tonight. I knew it was asking a lot to do 4.02mins earlier in the season and do it again here.

"I tried to stay with Kylie Palmer and from my outside lane didn't really see anyone else. I saw a pair of feet in the distance, figured it was Pellegrini and knew I couldn't catch her as she's so far ahead at the moment. Pellegrini is an amazing athlete and I'm just pleased to get the silver behind her. Two years ago in Rome I took the bronze so this meet is better for me already.

"I feel like I've made mistakes this cycle. We tried a few things this year in preparation for next year and we'll learn from that."

Earlier in the day, Jazmin Carlin could only finish 15th in the semi-finals in a time of 4:09.64, and she reacted emotionally after it emerged she had been suffering with glandular fever earlier in the year.

Britain's men's 4x100m freestyle relay team, including Adam Brown, Liam Tancock, Grant Turner and Simon Burnett, booked their place in the final. They were far from impressive in qualifying, but Tancock remained upbeat saying, "Pretty good, starting off the World Championships, part of the team here and it seemed to go pretty well."

There was no such luck for the women's quartet of Fran Halsall, Amy Smith, Caitlin McClatchey and Rebecca Turner, who missed out on the final by 0.26s.

Elsewhere, Jemma Lowe and Ellen Gandy will compete in Monday night's final of the 100m butterfly, while Hannah Miley booked her place in the 200m individual medley decider.

Lowe said: "I am really happy, it's nice to have both of us into the final. We share a room together, go through the day together so I think it's really nice we both go through tonight and into the final."

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