Swimming: Irish swimmer Gráinne Murphy narrowly missed out on a place in the 1,500m freestyle at the World Long Course Championships after finishing 10th overall in the heats in Shanghai in China.
The 18-year-old distance freestyle and individual medley specialist won her own heat by a massive eight seconds in 16:14.81 with Britain’s Keri-Anne Payne (16:23.11) her closest pursuer. However only the top eight swimmers progressed through to tomorrow’s final.
Denmark’s Lotte Friis came through as the fastest qualifier in 16:00.47, followed by Yiwen Shao of China (16:01.72) and USA’s Kate Ziegler (16:02.53).
“That was a fast 1,500m this morning. It was difficult for Grainne being in the first of the seeded heats and out on her own. She probably could have gone faster if she was pushed and in a quicker heat,” said Peter Banks, Swim Ireland National Performance Director.
“Gráinne always takes well to a challenge and unfortunately she didn’t have that this morning.”
In other news from Shanghai, junior swimmer Sycerika McMahon set a new Irish Junior record in the 100m breaststroke in a time of 1:09.91. It was a personal best time by over half a second for the Portaferry teenager who, just two weeks ago picked up three medals (two gold and one silver) at the European Junior Championships in Belgrade.
“I did what I wanted to do, I got a PB (personal best) so I’m really pleased with that. I was trying to go out fast because if I get out fast usually I can maintain it so that was my aim. I think I got out fast enough and tried to keep ahead of the girl next to me,” said McMahon.
McMahon had a full programme of races at the European Juniors earlier this month and still has the 4x200m freestyle relay on Thursday and the 50m breaststroke on Saturday.
Melanie Nocher finished her heat of the 100m backstroke in 1:03.43, just over a second outside her personal best but looks ahead to her other events this week – the 200m freestyle tomorrow, the 4x200m freestyle relay (Thursday) and the 200m backstroke (Friday).
“It’s not the time really I wanted, don’t really know what happened. I’ve just got to try and keep focused. I felt really good going into that, ideally I would have liked faster,” said a disappointed Nocher after the race.
Irish swimmer in action tomorrow include; Barry Murphy (50m breaststroke) and Nocher (200m freestyle).
Day 2 Results:
Heats:
W 100m backstroke: M. Nocher 1:03.43, 37th place
W 100m breaststroke: S. McMahon 1:09.91, 27th place (Irish Junior Record)
W 1,500m freestyle: G. Murphy 16:14.81, 10th place