Appreciating that Swim Ireland are anxious to start off on a good footing, is it not unusual that the Irish National Championships in Belfast actually overlapped with the European Championships in Istanbul at the end of last week?

As it happened several of Ireland's top swimmers could not swim in their chosen events at the nationals because they had to join the Irish team halfway through the Grove Baths meet to fly off to Budapest.

Trojan's Chantal Gibney was forced to miss two of her strongest events, the 100 metres freestyle and the 50 metres freestyle while Nick O'Hare, currently the swimmer with the highest profile bar Michelle Smith de Bruin outside of the sport, missed his 50 metres freestyle. The team left on Friday 23rd.

No doubt Swim Ireland believe everyone is on their case these days and perhaps there is a valid reason for this odd scheduling. But what might it be?