Swimming Paralympic World Championships

For Immediate Release
Wednesday 18th August 2010


MORE PERSONAL RECORDS FOR IRISH SWIMMERS

In another day of success, Ireland's disabled swimmers produced further high calibre performances at the IPC World Championships in Eindhoven.

Stephen Campbell returned to the pool for the 50m Freestyle (S11 Class) and set a new personal best time of 29.69 seconds, going under the 30 second barrier for the first time. Commenting on his performance, Campbell stated, "It was great to drop below 30 secs today for the first time I knew I had it in me and I just had to work on controlling the finish"

Matthew Bell and James Hamilton again demonstrated their abilities, competing in the 100m Breaststroke event (S14 Class) and finishing 14th and 16th overall respectively. Bell finished in a time of 1.18.73 taking 5 seconds off his mark while Hamilton posted a time of 1.19.65 to take seconds off his time. This is the first World Championship event for the young athletes from Northern Ireland and is a good indication of success yet to come.

South African based Gina Lourens competed in the 50m Freestyle event. Lourens put in a good performance to finish 10th overall with a time of 36.29 seconds, just outside her own personal best time.

Speaking afterward Lourens said, "I felt much better today in the pool and I'm looking forward to my better event the 5km open water swim on Saturday"

Competition continues tomorrow, August 19th, with a quieter day for Irish Swimmers at the Pieter van den Hoogenband swimming stadium with three swimmers in action
The Irish athletes are Stephen Campbell in the 400m Freestyle, James Scully in the 100m Freestyle and Jonathan Cummings in the 100m Freestyle.

ENDS

For further information contact:
John Fulham, PCI Communications Officer, 087-2709182
communications@pcireland.ie