Palmer and Fox are not quite good enough

Paul Palmer and Holly Fox won the only two finals on the opening day of the British Championships in Manchester, which are doubling up as trials for July's World Championships in Japan.

Palmer had to call on all his reserves in the 400m freestyle as he was pressed by Graham Smith. The 26-year-old touched home in 3mins 51.82secs to pip Smith by 27 one hundredths of a second.

But his time was almost three seconds shy of his British record and over one second slower than the required qualifying time for Japan.

Fox set a personal best time of 4mins 49.09secs when she won the 400 metres individual medley. Sharon Davies holds the British record of 4.46.83 which has stood since 1980.

To qualify for Japan swimmers have got to shave more than a second off this mark.