Swimming: Any lingering doubts over Melanie Nocher's selection for the forthcoming Olympics were blown out of the water this morning as the backstroke specialist bettered her own Irish record at the British National Swimming championships.
Nocher and Aishling Cooney were named in the Irish team earlier this week under a developmental arrangement between the Olympic Council of Ireland and Swim Ireland despite failing to achieve the FINA 'A' time required to guarantee selection.
But today's performance in Liverpool, where she claimed gold in the 200 metres backstroke in a time of 2 minutes 12.71 seconds, is well within the 'A' standard and allows the 20-year-old to compete in the 100m and 200m in Beijing.
Andrew Bree, also bound for Beijing, claimed the silver medal in the 200m breaststroke although his time of 2:14.19 was slightly outside that which he clocked in last night's heats.