SWIMMING/European Championships: Barry Murphy yesterday wrote a new chapter in Irish swimming when he broke Earl McCarthy's 11-year-old Irish senior record for the 100 metres freestyle in the morning heats at the European Championships.

The 21-year-old Dubliner, who like his team-mate Andrew Bree is on scholarship at the University of Tennessee, has shown progress here, and yesterday he cut .13 of a second off the Irish best set by McCarthy at the German nationals back in 1995.

Last Monday he cut two seconds off his personal best for the 100 metres breaststroke and in the blue riband, the 100 metres freestyle, he posted another good time when finishing third in heat three in 50.79 seconds, to break the long-standing record. He now holds the Irish standards for long- and short-course pools.

Germany's relay women are proving the big news of the meet. Yesterday their 4x200 metres team posted their second, and Germany's third, world record of the week-long championships.

Petra Dallmann, Daniela Samulski, Britta Steffen and Annika Liebs not only broke the record set by the USA in the Athens Olympics but destroyed it by almost three seconds with a time of seven minutes 50.82 seconds as the rain fell once again on the outdoor arena on Margitsziget (Margaret Island).

As she had done in the final leg of Monday's 100 metres, Liebs swam a stunning last 200 to help Germany take the honours ahead of a distant Polish squad with France in the bronze-medal position. It was a French squad that included their golden girl Laure Manaudou, who earlier in the night won the 200 metres individual medley and 100 metres backstroke titles to add to her 800 metres freestyle gold from Wednesday.

Murphy went out quickly over the first lap and touched the turn first in a fast 23.68 seconds. He tried to hold on over the second leg, hoping to be the first Irishman under 50 seconds. But he tied up on the last 25 metres, eventually finishing third. While it showed continued progress, Murphy's time was still over three-quarters of a second shy of making it into the last-16 semi-finals later in the day.

"I was delighted to get it," said Murphy afterwards. "It's been a long time coming. I had my eye on it for a good while. I wanted to break it by a bit more but you can't have everything, I suppose

"I felt relaxed. I spoke to the coaches before I swam and told them what I wanted to go out on. I was really going for a sub-50-seconds, but a little bit more work and that should come easy.

"It's one of those barriers and it would be great to be the first Irish guy under it (50 seconds), and that's what I have my sights on."

Murphy is clearly one of the most versatile Irish swimmers, majoring in both freestyle and breaststroke.

He says he has yet to really make his mind up on what event to concentrate fully on.

"I have a few events that I could concentrate on," he says. "At the moment it's a case of just finding the one that I'm highest-ranked in, I suppose.

"If I wanted I could knuckle down and give the 100 breaststroke a go and the 50s in breaststroke and freestyle.

"It's a matter of which event I really want to do."

Murphy has still to swim two events at this year's championships, and today he joins Bree and Jonathan Nixon in the heats of the 50 metres breaststroke,

Melanie Nocher, meanwhile, competes in the 50 metres backstroke heats.