SALISBURY Stingrays swimmer Phil Muspratt made positive steps recently at the Derventio eXcel Level 1 Open Meet, held at Ponds Forge International Pool in Sheffield.

The calibre of the event was made clear with Olympians Marco Loughran & Roberto Pavoni attending. The swimmer went into the event seeded tenth after battling illness in the week leading up to it.

Good form has been hard to come by of late for Muspratt but, swimming in his favourite pool, he produced a performance more fitting of his capabilities.

A season's best time of 23.94 seconds in the heats saw him comfortably qualify for the final, in which he faced an array of top sprinting talent that included GB youth international Karl Morgan, Andrew Weatheritt, who is currently the third in the UK rankings for 50m freestyle, and GB international Kane Haggett.

Muspratt finished ahead of his seeded position in seventh place after improving his season best time to 23.93 seconds.

"I'm happy with that,” he said.

“To get two SB times in the same session goes to show I'm now heading in the right direction and back on track.

That time would have won me gold the other week so to do that after being ill the past week is encouraging.”