Sandwell providing a theatre of dreams

Yet the 21-year-old will always have the distinction of being the first swimmer to win a competitive race at the Sandwell Aquatics Centre.

His time of three minutes, 57.56 seconds was around 10 seconds slower than that of Northern Ireland’s Daniel Wiffen, the fastest qualifier for the 400-metre freestyle final.

But in many ways it mattered not, on a morning which featured some of the best swimmers in the world and others for whom competing alone was the stuff of dreams.

The crowd, many no doubt watching the sport live for the first time, lapped it up throughout.

This corner of Smethwick, known locally as Londonderry after the lane on which the new £73million centre stands, has never seen anything quite like this. Perhaps about as far away in the entire West Midlands conurbation from a main road, the transformation of these usually peaceful streets into a buzz of activity, twice a day for the next six, is going to feel rather surreal.

The venue wasn’t quite at capacity, yet there were few empty seats when Freeman and his four opponents walked out just before 10.30, the PA encouraging those present to provide a ‘Big Birmingham Welcome’. This, of course, is Sandwell but on this occasion the oversight was forgiven and the spectators duly obliged.

Luke-Kennedy Thompson of the Bahamas, the first man to emerge poolside, seemed to be determined to make the most of the occasion, blowing a kiss to the television cameras. It was his most telling contribution to a race Freeman, the only entrant to have qualified with a time under four minutes and who is scheduled to compete in four events of distances ranging from 200m to 1500m, led from start to finish.

The next heat was far more competitive and the noise louder, Wiffen holding off the challenge of Australia’s Mack Horton to qualify with the fastest time. England’s Freya Colbert got the biggest roar of the first half-an-hour when she won her heat in the women’s 400m individual medley.

Things moved quickly, the time between each heat barely a minute, swimmers touching the wall and looking up to see those in the next race standing above them, preparing to go.

The pace was such that gradually, the crowd settled into a rhythm, silence descending in the seconds before each race, with the volume increasing rapidly once the action was underway.

From a Midlands perspective, the biggest interest centred on Freya Anderson, the former Ellesmere College student looking to deliver a statement after becoming an Olympic champion in bittersweet fashion last summer, racing the heats but not the final of the mixed 4x100m medley relay.

The 21-year-old had some of the biggest support, shouts of ‘Come on Freya’ echoing around the venue before and during her 200m freestyle heat, which rapidly became a straight fight between the England swimmer and Australia’s Ariarne Titmus.

Anderson swam strongly, yet Titmus was always a few metres ahead, touching the wall to set the fastest qualifying time. That completed an Aussie one-two-three at the top of the standings, with Anderson best of the rest. She would get her chance to break the hegemony in the evening’s final.

There were no medals to be won before then but plenty of memories to be made and in the case of Wales’ Lewis Fraser, a national record broken as he beat his own previous best in the 50m butterfly.

Perhaps the most striking image, however, came in the first heat of the women’s 50m breaststroke, in which there were only two competitors: Kanu Isha of Sierra Leone and Tia Gun-Munro of St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Gun-Munro comfortably won the face-off and while her time was never going to be good enough to make the final, it was more than three seconds quicker than the one with which she qualified.

The final event of the morning was the heats of the 4x100m freestyle relay and it delivered one of the most exciting races with England, Wales and Scotland all drawn in the same heat. Though the clock was obviously the main opponent, you would never have guessed it from the way Welshpool’s Dan Jones attacked the opening leg, racing stroke-for-stroke with England’s Edward Mildred.

The eight lengths were a straight fight between the two teams, with Scotland trailing third, never really in the mix. When Abbie Wood touched to give England the win the crowd roared their approval. It was a fitting finale to an opening morning which acted as an enjoyable appetiser for the drama to come.