Great Britain swimmer Georgia Coates has insisted that she is content with her fifth-place finish in the final of the women's 200m breaststroke at the European Games today.
Coates recorded a time of 2:29.53 at the Baku Aquatics Centre, 2.28 seconds behind bronze medallist teammate Layla Black.
However, the 16-year-old already has a silver medal and a bronze under her belt from the opening two days of swimming action in Azerbaijan, winning her place on the podium in both the women's and mixed 4x100m freestyle relay teams.
As one of Team GB's busiest swimmers in Baku, Coates admitted that fatigue does play a part across the week, but told Sports Mole that she can still add to her medal haul in the coming days.
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How are you feeling after that race?
"It was a bit slower than I'd have hoped to have gone but it was a solid race and I stayed in the position I'd gone into it in. I knew that people were going to go a lot faster than the heats, because I could tell from what they had on paper, but I just went in there and tried to keep with them and hope for the best really."
Do you think you did a good job of keeping with them?
"They go out very fast and often a lot quicker than my 100m PB, so it's hard to keep with them knowing that I've got enough left for the second 100m."
As you mentioned, you qualified as the fifth fastest for the final - did you think a medal was possible going into the race?
"That would have been absolutely amazing but I went into it thinking that it would probably be slightly out of my reach. I didn't think that it was impossible going into it. I just tried to race the people closer in, because I knew that they would go fast."
You've already won two medals here in Baku. Whatever happens between now and Sunday, will this have been a successful Games for you?
"Yeah, I came into this just hoping to get medals and I've done that already so I'm confident going into the rest of the meet that I can hopefully get a few more."
It has been a busy opening few days for you - does fatigue play a part?
"Yeah, obviously that's hard but I just try to keep on top of it. I know that everyone else is going to be tired too, but I try to keep myself as good as possible so that then I might have an advantage over other people."
Is there a temptation to cut down on the events and focus more on specific disciplines, or do you prefer to do as many as you can?
"I always do a lot of events. That's just the way I do it, because I feel like when I do less I still perform the same, so I think 'why not do more?'
"I can give myself more chances and just experience going out there and racing more. If I'm going to qualify for something like this, I may as well make the most of it."
And where does the 200m breaststroke rank amongst your favourite events?
"Well I only just started to do it last year. Because I mainly do [individual medley], then I realised that my breaststroke was strong as part of my IM, I thought to try it. It suddenly became one of my best events so I've just started doing it ever since."
Barney Corkhill
