SWIMMING O'Neill and Murphy Continue to Impress on Day 2

Day 2 of the LEN European Short Course Swimming Championships in Istanbul today saw more personal bests and more Irish records fall. 29-year old NAC-High Performance swimmer Donal O'Neill led the squad into action this morning, recording a new best and Irish Senior record time of 24.73 in the 50m backstroke heats (one tenth of a second faster than what he swum yesterday on the Men's 4x50m medley relay lead off leg).

16 year-old Grainne Murphy battled it out with Julia Hassler of Liechtenstein in the first heat of the Women's 800m freestyle this morning, to finish in 8.35.24, which was a new Irish Junior and Senior 800m record and an impressive 12th place finish overall. The Ballinaboola native's first 400m leg was also under the previous Junior record mark (split time 4.13.36). Team-mate Nuala Murphy of Trojan Swimming Club who is based out of the Limerick High Performance Centre touched the wall at 8.46.82 - clocking a new personal best time for the Monkstown swimmer and finishing in 15th place overall.

"Those were some more really good results for us - especially impressive were the two distance swimmers [Grainne Murphy and Nuala Murphy] in the 800m freestyle. To get two top 16 finishes is really good," commented Peter Banks National Performance Director after today.

Ireland had two men in the 100m freestyle: Conor Leaney recorded a personal best time of 48.80 and Steven McQuillan clocked in at 50.12 - also a new best.

The Women's 4x50m freestyle team relay was swum as a straight final in the evening session today. The squad of Niamh O'Sullivan, Clare Dawson, Aisling Cooney and Melanie Nocher finished in 1.42.52 and seventh place overall.

Irish Swimmers in action tomorrow are: Aisling Cooney (50m backstroke), Michael Dawson (50m breaststroke), Grainne Murphy, Nuala Murphy and Niamh O'Sullivan (400m freestyle), Donal O'Neill (100m backstroke) and the Women's 4x50m medley team relay.
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Issued by Swim Ireland, whose High Performance Programme is supported and funded by the Irish Sports Council