Ireland make a splash
IT WAS a record-breaking week, and one to savour for the Ireland team at the World Short Course Championships in China, as the men’s 4x100m medley team cut 18 seconds off the previous Irish best yesterday.
That followed Shane Ryan’s bronze medal heroics in the 50m backstroke on Friday.
Conor Ferguson (backstroke), Darragh Greene (breaststroke), Brendan Hyland (butterfly) and Ryan (freestyle) had all set individual records in their respective strokes across the week as well as one in the 4x50m version of the medley relay.
Yesterday morning’s swim was was an outstanding achievement as the quartet combined for a 4x100m time of 3:27.23, deleting the oldest men’s short course record from the books. The previous record had stood at 3:45.66.
Speaking afterwards, Greene said: ‘It was great to race together this morning.’
‘This was our second time racing together at a major championship, so just to get the experience is what we need heading into the summer at world championships, where we hope to qualify for Tokyo 2020.’
Team-mate Ferguson was similarly effusive about the swim, which saw them ranked 10th.
‘I feel we all swam incredibly well and were unlucky not to make it back,’ he said. ‘Hearing we broke the record after all of us swimming so well is another bonus.’
In action yesterday morning, Niamh Coyne beat her personal best by three seconds in the heats of the 200m breaststroke. The youth Olympic silver medallist was swimming in her first senior international meet this week and clocked personal bests in all three of her swims.
The team in China this week have had three top-10 performances with two semi-finals, a final and a medal for Shane Ryan in the 50m backstroke, Ireland’s first ever at a world championships. In total, the team notched 11 national records, nine individual and two relay.
National performance director Jon Rudd said: ‘I don’t think that we could have expected much more from this group of athletes.
‘To come out of a world championships with a 93 per cent lifetime best strike rate, and a 100 per cent conversion rate from heat to semi to final, is outstanding.
‘It’s a drum that we’re constantly beating and have done so since this performance team first came together.
‘If we have athletes that can walk into a global arena such as this, feel an ownership around their own performance and feel that they have a right to be in such an environment, then you can look forward to lifetime best performances in the heats.’
Looking ahead to 2019 Rudd added: ‘We will keep our feet on the ground.
‘As we know, this was a short course event and it will be quickly forgotten come our trials at the end of March 2019 as we prepare for the next world championships in Korea in the summer — with Olympic relay qualification and Olympic individual pre-validation both up for grabs.
‘But a first ever medal at a senior world event and a five-athlete team that could not have done much more is most encouraging for all of us.
‘It is very much hats off to Ben Higson and all of the performance team who enabled this and have now created such a tremendous impetus for Swim Ireland into the long course season ahead.’