Irish women come home seventh

SWIMMING EUROPEAN SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS: THE IRELAND women's 50 metres freestyle relay squad may have made the final at the European Short Course Championship here only because 10 nations bothered to enter; nevertheless, the quartet turned in a creditable performance to finish seventh in the decider.

This year’s championships in Turkey are using the full 10 lanes of the pool for the first time instead of the usual eight, and as a result Ireland’s squad didn’t have to go through the qualification heats, but instead were given an automatic entry into yesterday’s final, starting in lane two.

Niamh O’Sullivan was first in for Ireland, but the Limerick-based swimmer split a disappointing 27.04 seconds for the first 50. However, Claire Dawson, Aisling Cooney and Melanie Nocher dragged the squad up to eighth place at the finish, overhauling Iceland and Turkey.

Ireland were then elevated to seventh when the Russians were disqualified for an early change-over on their last leg.

It was first time an Irish relay squad had contested a European Short Course final and their time of 1.42.52 was just shy of the year-old Irish senior record.

The gold medal went to the Netherlands, who set the second world record of the night winning in 1.33.25, 0.55 of a second inside the world best which they set in Croatia last year.

Sweden took the silver with Germany in bronze.

The other world record of the night went to Laszlo Cseh of Hungary, the triple Olympic silver medallist, who cut 2.06 seconds off his world record with a time 3:57.27 in the 400-metre individual medley.

Earlier in the day there were two Irish senior records set in the heats as veteran Donal O’Neill, who only made a return to competitive swimming this year after a four-year absence, broke the 50 metres backstroke record for the second time in as many days.

The 28-year-old Dubliner swam 24.73, cutting .08 of a second off the time he set on Thursday in the lead leg of the 50 metres medley relay.

Sixteen-year-old Gráinne Murphy set a new junior and senior record in heat one of the 800 freestyle in 8.35.25.

Murphy is one of the few swimmers in Istanbul not wearing the controversial polyurethane body suit that will be banned from the sport at the beginning of January, and is using the meet to get used to the new textile version that will replace the shiny suits at year’s end.

The gold medal went to Lotte Friis of Denmark in 8:08.02, while Erika Vilaecija of Spain took the silver.

As the event was consolidated with no final, Ophelie Cyrielle Etienne of France, who won Murphy’s slower heat in the morning session, had a long wait for the second heat to be completed yesterday evening. But the wait was worth it as she picked up the bronze.

Murphy was ranked in 12th place overall.

Today Aisling Cooney competes in the 50 metres backstroke, Michael Dawson is in the heats of the 50 metres breaststroke, Gráinne Murphy, Nuala Murphy, Niamh O’Sullivan are in action in the 400 metres freestyle, and Donal O’Neill competes in the 100 metres backstroke.

Meanwhile, Fina may be looking outside of Dubai to host next year’s world short course championships owing to the financial crisis afflicting the country.

Fina were said to have approached other potential bidders, including Austria, to stage the 2010 event, but this was denied by the world governing body of the sport yesterday.