Lewis Edward Burras (born 12 February 2000) is a British competitive swimmer. He is the British record holder in the long course 100 metre freestyle. He is a 2022 Commonwealth Games silver medalist in the 50 metre freestyle, 4×100 metre freestyle relay, and 4×100 metre mixed freestyle relay, swimming on the finals relay for both relay events. At the 2022 World Aquatics Championships, he won a bronze medal in the 4×100 metre medley relay, swimming freestyle on the prelims relay, placed seventh in the 50 metre freestyle and seventh in the 100 metre freestyle. He placed eighth in the final of the 50 metre freestyle and twelfth in the semifinals of the 100 metre freestyle at the 2022 World Short Course Championships.
Background
Burras was born 12 February 2000. He attended Jumeirah English Speaking School in Dubai, United Arab Emirates for high school, where he competed scholastically as part of the school swim team, and attended the University of South Carolina in the United States for university, where he competed collegiately as part of the South Carolina Gamecocks swim team. In international competition, he competes representing Great Britain and England.
Career
2017–2018
For the 2017 FINA World Junior Swimming Championships, held in August in Indianapolis, United States, Burras placed 24th in the 100 metre freestyle with a time of 51.03 seconds, and ranked seventh in the preliminaries of the 50 metre freestyle with a 22.70 before being disqualified in the semifinals.
At the 2018 European Junior Swimming Championships, held in Helsinki, Finland in July, Burras won two medals. In the 50 metre freestyle, he won the bronze medal with a time of 22.69 seconds, finishing within one-tenth of a second of silver medalist Kliment Kolesnikov of Russia. He won his second medal in the 4×100 metre mixed medley relay, splitting a 49.13 for the freestyle leg of the relay in the preliminaries to help qualify the relay to the final ranking first, where the finals relay placed second in a time of 3:51.43 and Burras won a silver medal for his contributions in the preliminaries.
2022
2022 British Swimming Championships
In April 2022, at the year's British Swimming Championships, held at Ponds Forge in Sheffield, Burras won the gold medal in the 100 metre freestyle with a personal best time of 47.88 seconds. A few days later, he won the gold medal in the 50 metre freestyle with a personal best time of 21.77 seconds. Based on his results at the Championships, he was named to the 2022 World Aquatics Championships team representing Great Britain and the 2022 Commonwealth Games team representing England.
2022 World Aquatics Championships
Burras started off on the first day of pool swimming competition, day two overall, at the 2022 World Aquatics Championships, held at Danube Arena in June in Budapest, Hungary, with a fourth-place finish in the 4×100 metre freestyle relay, helping achieve a new British record and English record time of 3:11:14 with a lead-off time of 48.09 seconds. Three days later, in the semifinals of the 100 metre freestyle, he swam a personal best time of 47.63 seconds to set new British and English records in the event and qualify for the final ranking fourth. The following day, he placed seventh in the final with a time of 48.23 seconds. In the 50 metre freestyle final two days later, he achieved a time of 21.81 seconds to place seventh and finish 0.24 seconds behind bronze medalist Maxime Grousset of France. For the final day of pool swimming, the next day, he helped achieve a fourth-place finish in the 4×100 metre mixed freestyle relay in a time of 3:22.44, swimming the second 100 metres portion of the relay in 47.86 seconds. He also split a 47.90 for the freestyle leg of the 4×100 metre medley relay in the preliminaries, helping qualify the relay to the final ranking fifth. On the finals relay in the evening, he was substituted out, Tom Dean was substituted in, and all preliminaries and finals relay members won a bronze medal when the finals relay finished third in 3:31.31.