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Co. Down's Melanie Nocher showed good form on day three of the World Long Course Swimming Championships in the women's 200m freestyle, by finishing 3rd in her heat in a new personal best time of 2:01.33.
Relatively new on to the freestyle scene, the twenty-three year old Loughborough student swam a controlled race splitting 59.07 at the half way mark, maintaining her position alongside the leader Joerdis Steinegger of Austria. Probably most impressive was Nocher's spurt on the third 50m where she showed no sign of letting up, to bring her race home strong and touch the wall in a new all-time best. Nocher's previous fastest over this distance was 2:01.35 which she recorded at the Irish Long Course Nationals in Dublin in April.
"That was kind of the game plan, not to go out too hard and then kind of lose it coming back. It's all really preparation for Friday, for the 200m back," commented a breathless Nocher after the race.
She added: "I wasn't happy yesterday and it got me a bit all over the place, but you've got to realise as well it's a world International competition and stuff and it's a lot harder to swim pb's in the morning than it is in the evening and I think it's just getting used to swimming fast in the morning so for me that's a good time."
Also in action today was Dublin swimmer Barry Murphy who clocked a 28.13 in his 50m breaststroke heat to finish 18th overall - heartbreakingly two places shy of advancing through to tonight's semi-final. Murphy, who has been training with world famous coach Mike Bottom at Club Wolverine in Michigan for the past year expressed his disillusionment after the race:
"Don't know what happened, don't think I've done the right work in the last couple of weeks. It's a shame, because I've worked so hard this year. Think I was slipping a bit on the finish, last 5 strokes to the wall, everything else felt alright - good start, good breakout, good first 25m. I just tied up at the end a bit."
Murphy goes in the 50m freestyle on Friday morning, his last remaining event of the Championships.
"I've learned that maybe what I did over the last couple of weeks I should probably not do again next year before the Olympics," said Murphy. "I've got the 50m free [on Friday], let's just see how that goes."
There are no Irish swimmers in action tomorrow. The women's 4x200m freestyle team relay are in action on Thursday.
Issued by Swim Ireland, whose High Performance Programme is supported and funded by the Irish Sports Council .
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