Nocher into European Final

Ireland's Melanie Nocher broke the Irish Senior 200m Backstroke record as she booked a place in the Final of her main event at the European Swimming Championships in Debrecen, Hungary this afternoon. Nocher's time of 2:11.68 was good enough to see her through as the 6th fastest qualifier for tomorrow evening's final.

Nocher swam this morning's heat in a time of 2:13.09 outside her best of 2:11.71 but qualified 8th fastest into the semi-final. She will try and hit the Olympic A standard of 2:10.84 in tomorrow's final.

Also in action today was Bethany Carson in the 50m Butterfly finishing 37th in 28.43 just outside her personal best. Karl Burdis finished 28th overall in the 100m Backcrawl (56.43) and Nuala Murphy was 16th in the 400m Individual Medley.

First up tomorrow are Fiona Doyle, Sycerika McMahon and Shani Stallard in the Women's 100m Breaststroke heats. McMahon was just three tenths of a second shy of the Olympic A time in this event at the recent Celtic Tri Nations in Dublin. Bethany Carson will swim in the heats of the 100m Freestyle.

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