Swimmers Impress on Day 2 in Limerick

Barry Murphy kicked off proceedings on Day 2 at the Dave McCullagh Memorial Gala at University Arena, Limerick as he picked up his second Gold medal of the meet winning the 50m Butterfly final in 24.99. Murphy's NAC High Performance Centre teammate Brendan Hyland was second in 25.23 equalling the Irish Junior Record held by Conor Leaney. In the women's event UCD's Shauna O'Brien touched in 28.20 to claim Gold ahead of Bethany Carson (28.57) Lisburn ASC and Jane Roberts (28.72) Kilkenny SC. Roberts then went on to win the women's 100m Backstroke final, her time of 1:04.67 beat off Emma Cassidy (1:06.05) and Laoise Fleming (1:06.41).

Sycerika McMahon continued to dominate the women's events winning three more Gold medals on Day 2, bringing her tally to seven Irish titles so far. The Leander swimmer won the 200m Freestyle (2:03.41), 200m Breaststroke (2:34.32) and 800m Freestyle (8:58.54). 12 Year old Antoinette Neamt (9:00.65) was the silver medallist in the 800m Freestyle Final, the Tallaght swimmer put in an impressive performance to finish just behind McMahon and 15 seconds ahead of third place Therese Corry (9:15.67) from Portmarnock.

The ladies from UCD picked up their second relay title and Irish record of the weekend in the 4x100m Freestyle Relay. The quartet of Shauna O'Brien, India McGlynn, Shani Stallard and Aisling Cooney knocked over three seconds off the previous record held by Kilkenny and finished in 3:56.77 ahead of Aer Lingus (4:08.95) and Tallaght (4:14.24). The men from Aer Lingus were victorious in the 4x200m Freestyle Relay, they finished in 8:07.29 touching ahead of Ennis (8:26.42) and Ards (9:10.10)

There were a number of Junior qualifiers today for Summer meets as Mary Kate McDowell (200m Free) and Dearbhail McNamara (200m Breast) went under European Junior qualification times and Rachel Bethel (200 Free) and Niamh Kilgallon (200m Breast) hit European Youth Olympic Festival times.