NEWQUAY Cormorants' Paralympic gold medalist Jonathan Fox will take his place in the Great Britain squad for this summer's IPC World Championships in Canada.
The 21-year-old reaffirmed his reputation as one of the country's most talented swimmers after clinching a gold medal at last week's British International Disability Championships in Sheffield, to take another important step towards defending his World 100m Backstroke title.
His winning time was more than three seconds under the qualification time for the 2013 IPC World Championships in Montreal in August, to ensure his place in the Great Britain squad, which was announced yesterday.
Having led qualifying with a time of 1:10.53 in the morning heats, the Newquay Cormorants swimmer, who is now based in Manchester, clocked 1:11.29 for victory in the final, scoring 941 points for his time.
Slower
Fox, who set his world record 1:09.86 to win Paralympic gold by more than a second at London 2012, said: "I went a 1:11 in the final which was slower than this morning but I wanted to get the qualifying time in the heat so I could just have fun for the rest of the week."
He added: "If I'd have swum that 1:10 from the heats at London, I would have still won gold so that's really good to base this competition off and I'm really pleased with that time.
"It might seem like there was nothing to improve on from London but there's always things you can improve like your stroke rate, your technique and your turns.
"So I'm going to tweak those little things and hopefully I can give my world record a good run for its money in Montreal."
Fox returned to his family home in St Stephen on Monday for a break, before he resumes training this summer in preparation for August's World Championships.
Another Newquay swimmer in the medals was Ben Procter, who claimed silver in the 200m Freestyle, beating the IPC World Championships qualification time by 0.01 seconds with his time of 2:02.32.
Jonathan Fox is a member of the British Gas GBR Disability Swimming Team.
This spring British Gas is launching SwimBritain, a campaign to create a healthier nation and get more people swimming regularly by 2015. Visit swimbritain.co.uk
