Pursley cautious despite medal haul

Dennis Pursley sounded a note of caution after Great Britain concluded the World Championships in Rome with seven medals.

Tom Daley also won a shock gold in the 10metre platform diving while Keri-Anne Payne went one better than Beijing to take the 10kilometre open water title.

The event in Barcelona in 2003 remains the most successful to date in the pool in terms of the number of medals, with British swimmers reaching the podium on eight occasions - although the gold medal haul of two was the same at both events. However, this year's haul represents an improvement on the previous two World Championships.

While Pursley acknowledged progress was being made, the American remained cautious, saying: "Overall I am very pleased. I wouldn't say it's been a great meet for us.

"In my view, there is one record I don't want ever to break and that is the number of fourth-placed finishes.

"If we had fewer of those and more medals we could call it a great meet for us but we were close. "The good news is we are knocking on the door in more events than we ever have before.

"Overall it is progress and I continue to be very impressed with our coaches and swimmers.

"My observations are our swimmers are as well prepared and focused as handled. "The key is we are getting better and we are progressing."

Gemma Spofforth and Liam Tancock won gold in the 100m and 50m backstroke, both in world record time.

Jo Jackson claimed silver in the 400m and 800m freestyle as well as a bronze as part of the 4x200m relay and Fran Halsall took a surprise silver medal in the 100m freestyle.

While Rebecca Adlington was third in the 400m free and the relay alongside Jackson, the 20-year-old finished out of the medals in the 800m freestyle, her favourite event.

Pursley put that down to the pressure of being Olympic champion and her decision to remain with the Speedo LZR rather than use one of 2009's supersuits and backed the Mansfield-born swimmer to come back stronger.

With all but one of the medals claimed by women, Pursley did not express concern but acknowledged he wanted more men on the podium by 2012, pointing to apparent strength in depth in the world rankings.

National performance director Michael Scott admitted disappointment that those who had been successful at European junior level had not made the breakthrough. The championships were dominated by the effect of the polyurethane suits with 43 world records falling, some - such as Ian Thorpe's 400m freestyle mark - previously untouchable.

As a result, both Pursley and Scott described talk of records as irrelevant.

Scott also revealed 90-95% of swimmers made their choice of which suit to wear when they arrived in Rome following trials with different swimwear at their training camp in Sardinia with a number changing their minds as the competition went on.

There were a number of wardrobe malfunctions with suits ripping although such occurrences will soon be a thing of the past with the return to textile suits covering far less of the body to come into force on January 1, 2010.