SWIMMING European Youth Olympic Festival

Sycerika McMahon of Leander Swimming Club has won her second medal, this time a Bronze at the European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF) in Tampere, Finland, finishing 3rd in the final of girls 200m Individual Medley. McMahon recorded a new personal best time of 2:18.88 to add to her Silver medal won in the 400m Freestyle. Having qualified in third place from the heats McMahon was amongst the favourites for the medals and swam strongly throughout but was narrowly beaten by Germany's Alexandra Wenk (2:16.48) and Cristina Garcia of Spain (2:18.14) in a great final.

Irish lead coach Bobby Madine, who is McMahon's coach at Leander, described the performance as a fantastic result. "Sycerika is now the most medalled Irish swimmer in recent Irish history at the EYOF competition". He went on to say that that he was "delighted with the impeccable behaviour and performances from all 4 Irish swimmers and looking forward to their rest day tomorrow. Swimmers and staff are excited with the prospect of the last two days competition and want to thank Irish Physiotherapist Eimear O'Leary for her support at every session".

McMahon also qualified for the final of the 100m Freestyle in a new personal best time of 58.77 and went on to finish in joint 5th place, again lowering her personal best to 58.05.

Martin Burke of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI), who is Chef-de-Mission for the entire Irish squad in Finland added that "Pat Hickey (OCI President) has described McMahon's performances do date as excellent and a credit to all the hard work at Swim Ireland over the past number of years".

Dan Sweeney of Sunday's Well in Cork got his EYOF competition started today with huge success, qualifying for the final of the 200m Breaststroke with a new personal best time of 2:21.50. In a very strong field Dan finished in 8th place in the final which was won by Flavio Bizzarri of Italy in 2:15.35.

Nicholas Quinn of Castlebar swam strongly in the 100m Butterfly (1:00.93) and also recorded a new personal best in the 400m freestyle (4:17.80) but did not progress from his heats. He will now concentrate on his final event, the 400m Individual Medley, which takes place on Friday.

Bangor's Jordan Sloan had a rest day having already recorded a personal best in the 100m Freestyle and will hope for more success in the 50m Freestyle and 100m Backstroke events later in the week.