SWIMMING Grainne Murphy Returns to European Stage

Ireland's Grainne Murphy returns to the pool this week, to compete in her first race since winning a silver medal for Ireland (1500m freestyle) at last summer's European long course Swimming Championships in Budapest. Murphy will be competing in the European short course Swimming. Championships in Eindhoven, Holland this week, which get underway tomorrow and the Wexford-star has confirmed that she will compete in 7 events at the meet.

The 17-year old joins Olympians Melanie Nocher and Aisling Cooney who have both shown good form of late, along with coaches Ronald Claes and Andrew Reid, physiotherapist Scott Murphy, team manager Ruth McQuillan and official Brian Fallon.

The competition runs from Thursday 25 - Sunday 28 November in the Pieter Van Den Hoogenband indoor Swim Stadium. 375 swimmers from 35 countries will compete at the championships, which are being held for the first time in November due to the upcoming FINA World Short Course Swimming Championships in Dubai in mid-December.

The first of the small Irish squad in action tomorrow will be Aisling Cooney and Melanie Nocher in the 100m backstroke heats. Grainne Murphy goes in the heats of the 200m Individual Medley. Heats begin at 09:30 local time (08:30 Irish time) and finals begin at 17:00 local time (16:00 Irish time).

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