Adlington eases through 400m heats

Britain's double Olympic champion Rebecca Adlington shrugged off the pressure of home expectations to ease through her 400 metres freestyle heat at the national championships on Sunday. Adlington had admitted on the eve of the championships, which also double as the Olympic trials, that the fear of failing was "killing" her. But the 23-year-old looked in great form at the Aquatics Centre on Sunday, leading her heat from start to finish with only Jazmin Carlin, the Commonwealth bronze medallist, going with her. Adlington touched in four minutes and 06.75 seconds, ahead of Carlin, who clocked 4min 09.32sec. Olympic silver medallist Jo Jackson, now recovered from illness and asthma problems, was in the penultimate heat and clocked the second-fastest time. "I'm training really hard so hopefully it can pay off tonight (in the final)," said Carlin. "We've got such a strong field out there with Becky and Jo, who are already Olympic medallists, so that's going to be tough against the more experienced swimmers."