Murphy Wins Euro Bronze in Denmark

Barry Murphy has won a Bronze medal at the European Short Course Swimming Championships in Herning, Denmark. The 28 year old follows Grainne Murphy, Melanie Nocher and Sycerika McMahon as the fourth medallist for Ireland at these championships in four years.

Barry came out of this morning's 50m Breaststroke heats as the 6th fastest qualifier and following the semi-final earlier this evening where he swam the exact same time as the heat, 26.86, was ranked 8th overall.

Knowing that he would be swimming in the outside lane Murphy knew he would need to be first to the wall at the 25m mark or with the leaders to have a chance at a medal; he started strong clocking the fastest first 25 metres of the ten swimmers in the pool. He then continued to push for the last 25 metres knowing a medal was in sight finally touching in 26.56 to claim the 50m Breaststroke Bronze medal in 26.56, his first at a major championship.

Speaking after the race Murphy said "I'm really delighted; I knew I was in with a shout off the rankings and the times I posted during the summer, so I tried to keep my cool all day and execute my plan for the swim. It came down to hundreds of a second for the medal and thankfully I got my hand on the wall to secure the Bronze."

The Dubliner is one of 20 full time swimmers that train's at Swim Ireland's Performance Centre at the National Aquatic Centre.

Damir Dugonjic of Slovenia was the Gold medallist in the event in 56.21.

Fiona Doyle finished her championship with an impressive 14th place finish in the 100m Breaststroke. Doyle was 6th in the first heat with a time of 1:06.77. Russia's Yuliya Efimova continued her good form in the Breaststroke events finishing as the fastest seed finishing in a new championship record of 1:03.27.