Swimming: Sheppard prospers with world prize
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Your support makes all the difference.Four gold medals won by Sarah Price, Zoe Baker, James Hickman and Mark Foster on the second and final day of the World Cup meet in Berlin lifted Great Britain's haul of golds to eight.
However pride of place went to Alison Sheppard who gained gold in the 50 metres freestyle on Saturday to top the women's overall world rankings and swell her bank balance by $50,000 (£35,000).
"It's a lot of money," Sheppard said, "I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. Most probably I'll buy one thing that is special and invest the rest. I came here wanting to swim fast not wanting to win the money. The best I'd hoped for was third place."
Yesterday Price added the 100m backstroke to the 200m she won 24 hours earlier. The double Commonwealth champion fought off stiff competition from two Japanese swimmers either side of her and touched home in 59.08 seconds, pushing Noriko Inada and Mai Nakamura into silver and bronze places respectively.
Foster and Baker came to Berlin aiming to break their respective world records. Baker, the 26-year-old Yorkshirewoman who lives in New Zealand, led the 50m breaststroke throughout to win in 30.73secs.But that was 0.77secs away from the Swede Emma Igelstrom's world mark.
"I'm pleased with the win but all my times in Paris, Stockholm and here have all been around the same," said Baker. "There's something wrong. I don't know what it is. I'm better long course, the turn disrupts my stroke."
Foster, like Price, completed an unbeaten sequence of wins in the three European rounds when he added the 50m freestyle to the 50m butterfly won on Saturday. But the 32-year-old, who is trained by athlete Colin Jackson, could not beat his own world record of 21.13secs as he won gold in an impressive 21.28secs.
South Africa's Roland Schoeman, the Commonwealth champion, clinched silver 0.14secs behind with the world short course champion Jose Meolons of Argentina claiming bronze.
Foster said: "I'm very pleased. I would have liked to have been closer to my record. Each swim was faster and I held it together well. That time would have won the world short title in Moscow last April."
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