AIMEE WILLMOTT narrowly missed out on a medal as she finished fourth in the final of the 400m Individual Medley at the European Swimming Championships in London.

Willmott, who has already been selected for the British squad for this summer’s Olympics in Rio, was unable to keep pace with Hungarian Katinka Hosszu, who was a convincing gold medallist, and team-mate Hannah Miley, who finished second.

However, while she was well down the field in the opening two legs, a strong showing in the breaststroke and front crawl enabled her to close in on Zsuzsanna Jakabos, who eventually finished third.

Willmott’s time of 4:40.08 was almost three seconds slower than her performance as she qualified from yesterday morning’s heats, and the Teessider will be looking to improve significantly when she competes in Rio.

Meanwhile, North-East duo Josef Craig and Matt Wylie have been named in the British swimming squad for this summer’s Paralympics.

Craig, who is from Jarrow and a former winner of The Northern Echo’s Local Heroes Awards, burst to prominence when he smashed the world record to win a Paralympic gold at London 2012 in the 400m freestyle S7.

A reclassification from S7 to S8 threw his participation at Rio into doubt, but he has continued to make an impact on the international stage and recently won a silver medal at the IPC European Championships in Madeira.

“I’m absolutely delighted to have my name on the team sheet for Rio,” said Craig. “This is what I’ve been working for. The public support that I’ve had since London 2012 has been incredible and really spurred me on.

“I have some amazing memories from my home Games, but I’m really focused on the present now. I’m going to keep focused on my training to make sure I’m ready to go out there and perform when it really matters.”

Craig trains with Wylie, who is from Washington, at City of Sunderland SC, and the latter also starred at the recent European Championships, winning gold in the 50m freestyle S9.

“The Paralympics are the absolute pinnacle of competition, and I’m so excited to have the opportunity to go out to Rio and race against the world’s best athletes,” said Wylie.