Adlington sends message to rivals in Sheffield

The 21-year-old completely dominated over eight lengths and touched in four minutes 05.50 seconds to equal the world's fastest time this year.

Jazmin Carlin was second almost four seconds adrift with Adlington's Nova Centurion team-mate Sasha Matthews in third.

World Championship silver medallist Joanne Jackson, from Northallerton, was absent though, after she withdrew following the morning's heats because of her ongoing medical problems.

Adlington also won the 200m and 800m freestyle this week and can now look forward to competing at the European Championships in Budapest as well as her first Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October.

Her performances were all the more impressive given she was not pushed over the two longer distances.

Adlington said: "That has been the hardest challenge this week, doing it my own.

"In the 200, Jaz and Jo were up there so that was quite easy for me to get into the race then.

"It's so hard to do it your own and you haven't got that person pushing you.

"I'm really pleased with that, I've been so tired all day and I didn't get a very good night's sleep so I'm just looking forward to having a week off."

The Bill Furniss-coached swimmer will now renew rivalries with the likes of Federica Pellegrini in Budapest, the first woman to dip under four minutes for the 400m free at the worlds in Rome last year, a race in which Adlington was third.

The 800m was dominated by Europeans with Denmark's Lotte Friis, Jackson and Alessia Filippi of Italy taking the medals. She added: "I'm really looking forward to it.

"The Europeans is a tough one for the freestyle distance events especially, the 800, things like that."

Achieng Ajulu-Bushell, whose switch from representing Kenya to Britain and England is being formalised, booked her place for Budapest and Delhi with victory in the 100m breaststroke.

The 16-year-old had already won the 50m title and then followed it up with a clear victory in a personal best of 1:08.51.

Fran Halsall completed a hat-trick of titles with a clear victory in the 50m freestyle in 24.77, lowering her own second fastest time in the world.

Liam Tancock became the fastest man in 2010 when he won the 100m backstroke in 52.85 with James Goddard shooting to the top of the world 200m individual medley rankings in 1:57.76, his second title of the week and Michael Rock added the 100m butterfly title to the 200m crown.

Robert Holderness took the 50m breaststroke in 28.73, while Georgia Davies set a new Welsh record of 28.54 in the 50m backstroke final.

In the multi-disability events, James Crisp set a new world record of 1:03.32 in the S9 category of the 100m backstroke.