Nocher Qualifies for World Championships

Ireland's top National swimmers enjoyed a packed-out pool today at the National Aquatic Centre in Dublin for the third consecutive day of the Irish long course Nationals. Golden girl Sycerika McMahon treated us to a cracking race in the women's 400m freestyle final, claiming her sixth gold medal of the Championships.

The first 100m of the race featured McMahon, Niamh O'Sullivan (UCD/NAC-High Performance Centre and Nuala Murphy (Trojan/Limerick- High Performance Centre) taking the lead. Grainne Murphy who swum in the heats earlier today, opted not to swim in the final. At the half way mark, Murphy who is returning from an injury this year, dropped behind leaving McMahon and O'Sullivan to dominate the race. The two rivals made an outstanding effort, and turned at the last wall within 4 hundredths of a second of each other. O'Sullivan dug in deep, but McMahon powered through on the last 25m in an impressive home straight spurt to touch the wall ahead of the Kerry native in 4min.17.39 - just over a second faster than O'Sullivan (4min 18.17).

The highly anticipated Women's 200m backstroke final saw Melanie Nocher dip inside her World Championship qualifying standard (2.12.73) in style. Fellow Olympian Cooney - swimming alongside Nocher - led to the half way mark then Nocher, known for her strong back halves pulled ahead and finished strong. Nocher will now join Grainne Murphy and Barry Murphy at the World Swimming Championships in Shanghai, China from 24 - 31 July, who have also secured their tickets to China.

Earlier, McMahon won the 50m breaststroke final and following her victory in the 400m, she went on to claim gold and a new Irish Junior record of 1.02.05 (previously held by Laura McDonnell of Cormorant) in the 100m butterfly.