Junior Swimmers Smash Irish Records in Lisburn

Athlone's Brendan Gibbons kicked off proceedings on Day 2 of the Irish SC National Championships in Lisburn by setting a new Irish Junior Record in the Final of the Men's 1500m Freestyle. Gibbons, who was a member of the European SC Team in France last week, set a new standard of 15:26.03 beating off two Aer Lingus swimmers, Conor Turner (15:29.73) and Andrew Meegan (15:39.63).

Brendan Hyland continued with his record breaking form from the European SC Championships also. The 18 year old Tallaght and NAC High Performance Centre Swimmer set a new Irish Junior and Senior Record in the 200m Butterfly Final. Hyland, who set five National Records at Europeans, won Gold ahead of Galway's David O' Sullivan (2:02.10) and James Brown (2:08.53) of Ards.

And the records continued to fall as NAC SC and UL Performance Centre swimmer Brian O'Sullivan broke Karl Burdis' 2008 Irish Junior Record in the 50m Backstroke. O'Sullivan knocked .05 of a second off the record of 26.02 when he touched in 25.97 securing the Gold medal.

Galway and Connacht Performance Centre swimmer Cian Duffy continued the trend with a new Junior Irish Record of 2:03.46 in the 200m Individual Medley Final. Duffy had set the previous record of 2:04.01 at the European SC Championships last week.

Barry Murphy (49.96) won Gold in the 100m Freestyle Final today in his last race before the World Short Course Championships in Istanbul starting on the 12th December. Kilkenny's David Prendergast (50.42) took Silver in the event with Brian O'Sullivan (51.54) picking up his third medal of the day finishing in third to complete a trio of Gold (50m Back), Silver (200m IM) and Bronze Medals for the day.

The girls from Bangor finished off the session on a high when they set a new junior club relay record in the 4x50m Freestyle. Jenny Drennan, Jemma Speers, Mary-Kate McDowell and Emma Reid, all members of Swim Irelands National Youth and Junior Squads, clocked 1:50.07 in a new Club Record time.

Competition continues tomorrow with Sycerika McMahon back in action.