European Swimming Championships – Irish Team Update Day 1 – Murphy Finishes 7th in European Final

Budapest, 9 August 2010 – Ireland’s Grainne Murphy finished 7th in the final of the 400m Individual Medley (IM) this evening in Budapest after qualifying out of this morning heats in 4.41.80 – her final time was 4.43.45.

 In a field with European record holder Katinka Hosszu (Hungary) and Olympic finalist Hannah Miley, Murphy put in a good swim and although not her best time, she reflected on her performance afterwards:

“It’s really good experience being out here and to be racing against World and European champions and to be in a final with them is a great achievement,” said the 17 year-old Wexford girl after the race. “Maybe I would have liked to have gone a little bit faster, but there’s always positives to think about. My stroke technique was very good and I was strong on all four strokes.” Murphy goes in the 200m IM tomorrow morning.

21 year-old Hannah Miley, who has trained in Ireland with Murphy on a number of occasions at Swim Ireland’s high performance event camps, and who was 6^th in the 400m IM at the Beijing Olympics, occupied the centre lane in the 400m IM final and had an amazing back half swim and battle with Hosszu of Hungary, coming strong on the breaststroke leg and really powering home on the freestyle to take gold for Great Britain, ahead of the local Hungarian hero. Miley won the event in 4.33.09, Hosszu was second in 4.36.43 and Zsuzsanna Jakobos from Hungary was third in 4.37.92.

Ireland’s second swimmer this evening, Melanie Nocher, finished the 200m backstroke semi-final in 2.13.32 – one and a half seconds slower than the Irish record time she produced two weeks ago at the Irish Youth Open Championships.

Irish swimmers in action tomorrow are Ryan Harrison (200m freestyle), Andrew Bree (200m Individual Medley) and Clare Dawson (100m freestyle). Heats kick off at 08.30 Irish time/09.30 local time.