Brendan Hyland and Jordan Sloan added their names to the growing list of swimmers with consideration times for the European Championships today joining Darragh Greene, Shane Ryan, Mona McSharry and Conor Ferguson for the August event.
Hyland was the star of the show in Dublin as the National Centre Dublin swimmer cracked the 1.58 mark in the 200m butterfly final. Hyland broke his own record of 1:58.08 by over half a second in 1:57.44 and won his sixth consecutive 200m Butterfly title.
The delighted 23-year-old said: “Usually I’m quite excited by something like this but today I’m just so relieved, I’m always really nervous. I said to my coach if I could get down to 1.57 low for this season it would be a success, we’re there now so I’ll keep pushing on.”
Jordan Sloan, swimming at the Commonwealth Games overnight, also hit the European Championships consideration in the 200m freestyle. Sloan missed out on the final by just 0 .08 in 1:48.16.
Darragh Greene continued to dominate the Breaststroke events with his third win coming in the 50m final today. Greene held off his National Centre Dublin team-mate Alex Murphy (27.56) to top the podium for the third time this week in 27.44.
Mona McSharry collected her second and third golds of the meet in the 100m freestyle and 50m breaststroke. McSharry, who won the 100m breaststroke earlier in the week, was the first Irish swimmer home in the 100m freestyle in 56.85 going on to win the 50m breaststroke final just a short time later in 31.45.
Relay final
Ellen Walshe retained her 200m butterfly national title for the third year with a time of 2:15.93, and was under the consideration time for the European Junior Championships. Also adding his name to the European Junior Championships list was Cadan McCarthy, who was crowned 400m individual medley champion in 4:32.11.
Finn McGeever claimed his first Irish title cruising to gold in 8:23.90 ahead of Daniel Wiffen (8.31.36) and Andrew Meegan (8:45.68) while NCSA’s Brendan Driscoll took commemorative gold in 8:12.13.
Aer Lingus’s Lara McEvoy, Caitríona Finlay, Sophie Hayman and Hannah McMenamin combined to win the 800m freestyle relay final in 8:49.94.
At the Commonwealth Games today, Northern Ireland had a number of finalists in action. Conor Ferguson was eighth in the 100m backstroke final in 55.01. Barry McClements touched seventh in the S9 100m freestyle in 1:00.34.
Jordan Sloan, David Thompson, Calum Bain and Curtis Coulter combined for a seventh-place finish in the 400m freestyle relay in 3:20.03. Danielle Hill progressed to semi-finals in both the 50m freestyle and 100m backstroke, the Larne swimmer making it through to tomorrow’s final in the 50m freestyle in eighth place in 25.80.
Competition in Dublin continues tomorrow through to Sunday and in Gold Coast through to Tuesday.
