Newbury Swimming Club coach wins gold in European competition

A record number of 9,700 swimmers entered the championships, with competitors from 75 countries competing in five-year age ranges from 25 to 99, including several in the 95-99 age group and a number of former-Olympians.
Milburn’s world championship campaign got off to a flying start in the 100m breaststroke with a silver in the 50-54 year age group, a nail-biting finish seeing him just pip Swiss Preban Warga by two/100ths of a
second in 1:13.25 with the gold going to veteran Ukrainian Igor Medvediev in 1:11.96.
He produced another solid display in the 50m breaststroke to finish fourth in 32.65 seconds with the Ukrainian again taking the gold and the first eight competitors finishing within a second of each other.
Saving his golden performance until last, Milburn led the 200m breaststroke at the 50m split in 34.86, only to see the Ukrainian come back and lead by half-a-second at the halfway mark and by nearly a second after 150 metres.
But a storming final 50m saw Milburn finish strongly, overtaking Medvediev to take control of the race and win by 2.8 seconds to clock 2:37.77, knocking three seconds off the British Masters’ record set in May at the British Championships in Sheffield.
“I was delighted and surprised to both win the race and break the British record by so much,” he said.
It was the only gold medal won by a British male at the event, with more than 100 making the trip to Italy.
The next championships are set for Montreal in Canada in 2014.