SWIMMING EURO CHAMPIONSHIP:GRÁINNE MURPHY may have found yesterday morning's heats of the women's 400 metres freestyle a race too far as she failed to emerge into last night's final at the European Championships in Budapest, but it couldn't take away from what was an extraordinary week for the 17-year-old Wexford girl which culminated in a silver medal in Saturday's 1,500 metres freestyle final.

Clearly tired after her exertions after three demanding finals in six days, Murphy placed 12th overall in yesterday’s 400 metres freestyle heats in a respectable time of 4:14.09, but two and a half seconds outside the last of the qualifiers.

That was in contrast to Saturday night as she stood on the victory rostrum at a packed stadium at Margaret Island which lies slap bang in the middle of the mighty river Danube and took richly deserved plaudits for her silver medal performance in the 1,500 metres freestyle, the longest event in the pool.

Murphy had quickly established herself in second place in the race behind Lotte Friis of Denmark, who had already won the 800 metres freestyle gold on Thursday, and despite a late burst by Erika Villaecija Garcia of Spain, it was a silver medal position she was never likely to relinquish as Friis, the class act in the field, landed the gold medal.

The Irish teenager recorded a blistering time of 16:2.29 seconds which cut a further eight seconds off the Irish record she set in the heats on Friday and that translated into the second fastest time in the world this year.

Friis recorded the fastest of all with a cracking 15:59.13, with Villaecija Garcia taking bronze over two and half second adrift of Murphy in third.

Messages of congratulations poured in from the President’s office to Mary Hanafin, Minister for Tourism Culture and Sport.

The Limerick-based swimmer confirmed she will contest the European Short Course (25-metre) Championships in Eindhoven in November, before making a decision about the World Short Course Championships in Dubai in December.

“I was still quite tired after the 1,500 metres final but I got in and gave it my best shot. I’m happy with the result even though I didn’t make the final, but it was still a great week,” said Murphy after yesterday’s 400 metres freestyle heats. “I think every part of me is just tired at this stage and a good sleep is what I need. We set up a demanding programme for the week to see what events would be my best and I then withdrew from the others. Overall the week was great going from one step to the next and progressing throughout.

“I learnt a lot from the 400 metres individual medley and 800 metres freestyle finals and going into the 1,500 metres decider I had two finals behind me just to give me the experience to take the silver.

“My parents were here to see me which was great. I think my Dad was the more excited; my mam is the calmer one. But I got support from home and the reaction was great not only for me but for the other Irish swimmers as well and that can only be good for swimming in Ireland.

“We are only a small team, but we support each other; there is a super team spirit and I want to thank them as well as Swim Ireland and the Irish Council and my coach Ronald (Claes) for all he has done for me.”

Claes is the Limerick high performance centre coach at the University Arena Pool and is a former Belgium swimmer and coach. He was formerly head coach of the Flemish swimming federation and for the Royal Belgian swimming federation at the 2005 European Youth Olympic festival and at the 2006 and 2007 European Junior Championships before taking over as the coach in Ireland’s first high performance centre. The second was added recently at the NAC in Dublin under Paul Donovan, the former coach of Trojan.

The Irish high performance swimming programme is overseen by Dubliner Peter Banks, one time coach to American Brooke Bennett, the three-time Olympic gold medallist.

“It shows that we can have medallists come out of our programme and as we have set up high performance centres in Dublin and Limerick, the work there is paying off,” said a delighted Banks.

“We hope that this is the start of many young swimmers getting excited about the sport of swimming.

“She is a three-time junior European champion and now all of a sudden she is medalling at senior level and much credit must go to her coach, Ronald, for setting out and implementing a programme for her.

“Maybe she was a little better than we thought she was going to be, but I was watching her in our training camp in Slovenia and the swims she put in there.

“I was very impressed. I have coached distance swimmers and she was doing phenomenal things in the water so I was glad to see that transfer into the competition pool.”

Barry Murphy was Ireland’s other finalist over the weekend but he finished a disappointing eighth in the final of the men’s 50 metres breaststroke.

The 22-year-old Dubliner got a great start and was in third place at 25 metres but panicked in the closing stages and missed his finish. His time of 27.96 was 0.36 of a second shy of his semi-final time, a lifetime best in a 50-metre final.

Fabio Scozzoli of Italy won the gold in 27.38, with Dragos Agache of Romania second and Lennart Stekelenburg of the Netherlands in bronze position.

European Championships Results

Men’s Finals

50m Freestyle: 1 F Bousquet (Fra) 21.49, 2 S Nystrand (Swe) 21.69, 3 F Gilot (Fra) 21.76.

400m Individual Medley: 1 L Cseh (Hun) 4:10.95, 2 D Verraszto (Hun) 4:12.96, 3 G Nevo (Isr) 4:15.10.

4x100m Medley Relay: 1 F (Camille Lacourt Hugues Duboscq Frederick Bousquet Fabien Gilot) 3:31.32secs, 2 Russia 3:33.29, 3 Netherlands 3:33.99.

Diving 10m Platform: 1 S Klein (Ger) 534.85pts, 2 P Hausding (Ger) 516.45, 3 V Kaptur (Blr) 515.80.

Women’s Finals

50m Freestyle: 1 T Alshammar (Swe) 24.45secs, 2 H Schreuder (Ned) 24.66, 3 F Halsall (Brit) 24.67.

400m Freestyle: 1 R Adlington (Brit) 4:04.55, 2 O Cyriell Etienne (Fra) 4:05.40, 3 L Friis (Den) 4:07.10

200m Butterfly: 1 K Hosszu (Hun) 2mins 06.71secs, 2 Z Jakobos (Hun) 2:07.06, 3 E Gandy (Brit) 2:07.54.

50m Breaststroke: 1 Y Efimova (Rus) 30.29secs, 2 K Haywood (Brit) 31.12, 3 J Johansson (Swe) 31.24.

4x100m Medley Relay: 1 Britain (G Spofforth K Haywood F Halsall A Smith) 3:59.72, 2 Sweden 4:01.18, 3 Germany 4:03.22

Diving 3m Synchro Springboard: 1 T Cagnotto F Dallape (Ita) 327.90pts, 2 O Fedorova A Pysmenska (Ukr) 312.00, 3 A Pozdnyakova S Filippova (Rus) 307.50.

Women's 1500m Freestyle: 1 L Friis (Den) 15mins 59.13secs, 2 G Murphy (Irl) 16:02.29, 3 E Villaecija Garcia (Esp) 16:05.08, 4 C Alina Potec (Rom) 16:17.67, 5 M Lymperta (Gre) 16:20.19, 6 N Dittrich (Aut) 16:23.63, 7 T Oder (Slo) 16:23.70, 8 I Haerle (Ger) 16:24.45.