McMahon and Murphy break Irish Swimming Records in Lisburn

European Junior medallist Sycerika McMahon was in great form, breaking the senior 100m breaststroke and 200m Individual medley records and the junior 200m butterfly record and picked up three gold medals on the way. McMahon won the heats of the100m breaststroke comfortably this morning in a time of 1:09.27 before breaking her own Irish Senior record (1:07.93) in this evening's final in a time of 1:07.83. The Leander swimmer then followed up with a record breaking swim in the 200m butterfly final clocking 2:13.52, before breaking Grainne Murphy's 200m individual medley record (2:12.86) finishing in 2:12.41. The 16 year old swimming sensation finished day one with a hat trick of gold medals and competes again tomorrow in 5 more events.

Swimming for Aer Lingus SC, Olympic qualifier Barry Murphy returned to the pool today and posted a new Irish Senior record and secured four gold medals. Murphy put in a fantastic performance in the 100m butterfly to ensure gold and set a new Irish senior record time of 53.34 (previously held by Steven McQuillan 54.06). Murphy then went on to win the 50m breaststroke (27.53) and 100m individual medley (55.71). Murphy picked up his fourth medal of the day in the mens 4x50m medley team relay, swimming with team mates Sean O'Brien, Conor Turner and Andrew Meegan, the Aer Lingus team claimed gold in 1:47.42.

The four day event runs from today until Sunday with heats starting at 09:30am and finals commencing at 16:30pm.

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