SWIMMING:AISHLING COONEY narrowly missed out on a place in the Beijing Olympics when she won the gold medal in the women's 100 metres backstroke on the final day of the Dutch National Championships in Eindhoven.
The 18-year-old Dublin schoolgirl won yesterday's final in a time of one minute, 2.55 seconds, just .55 of a second outside the Olympic qualifying A standard.
Melanie Nocher took silver in the same event and was a second and a half outside qualification when she won the 200 backstroke gold on Saturday morning.
Barry Murphy won the men's 50-metre breastroke title in 28.44 seconds, but that is a non-Olympic event.The Dubliner will be disappointed with his swims. His top event is the 50 freestyle but he remains frustratingly close to the qualifing time of 22.35 seconds, having clocked 22.61 in the first leg of the 100 free heats on Saturday evening.
Ireland's women quartet of Cooney, Nocher, Fiona Doyle and Lorna Cummins set a Irish senior record when finishing third in the final of the 4x100 metres medley relay. They took bronze in a time of four minutes, 19.20 seconds.
It's now likely Swim Ireland will nominate Cooney, Nocher and Murphy to the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) by the cut-off date of July 9th in the hope they will be selected with Andrew Bree, despite the fact they have not gone under Olympic qualification times.
The OCI said during the week they could well take Irish swimmers who have come close to the A qualification standard if they were contenders to compete in London in 2012 and Cooney, Nocher and Murphy fulfil that criteria.
"I will have to speak to Swim Ireland about who we put forward for nomination," said national coach Keith Bewley. "This weekend was the last chance for Irish swimmers to join Andrew (Bree) at the Games although Barry Murphy could have another crack at the qualification time at a meet in Tennessee, but at this stage is likely, outside of Bree, we will have no other swimmers under the A standard demanded by the OCI."
Bree (27) is back in the Games having being exonerated by Fina after he tested positive for a banned substance after the European Short Course Championships in Hungary last December.
The Tennessee-based swimmer will continue his build-up to the Games, where he has qualified for the 200 metres breastroke, at his US university before returning to Europe next month to contest the British nationals in Liverpool in mid-July.
Japan's double Olympic champion Kosuke Kitajima broke the world record for the 200 metres breaststroke in Tokyo, the event in which Bree will compete in Beijing. The 25-year-old, who has been wearing Speedo's LZR Racer swimsuit for the first time in competition at the Japan Open, touched home in two minutes 7.51 seconds to carve almost a second off American Brendan Hansen's two-year-old mark.
Kitajima's record-breaking swim is the 38th world record set by a swimmer wearing the LZR Racer swimsuits since they were introduced in February. The Japanese federation will decide tomorrow whether its swimmers will be allowed to wear the swimsuits at this summer's Games.
