SWIMMING Murphy Breaks 15-Year Old Irish Record in Eindhoven

Ireland had a great start to their campaign on the first day of the short course European Swimming Championships in Eindhoven today, with one Irish record and one semi-final swim.

Backstroke specialists Aisling Cooney and Melanie Nocher were the first Irish in action, with the 100m backstroke heats earlier today. Cooney's time of 1:00:59 was three hundredths of a second shy of what she needed to advance to the evening's final and she finished seventeenth overall in the heats.

Nocher set a new personal best time of 1 min 00.17 seconds to advance to the semi-final in 11th position, where she finished 15th place in another personal best of 1:00:12.

European silver-medallist Grainne Murphy was in action in the 200m Individual Medley - setting a new Irish Record time of 2:12:86, to finish 12th overall in the heats. The record that Murphy broke was a fifteen-year old record previously held by Michelle Smith De Bruin.

Grainne Murphy will be the only Irish swimmer in action in the pool tomorrow (800m freestyle,100m IM).

Issued by Swim Ireland, whose High Performance Programme is supported and funded by the Irish Sports Council