Relay women excel in defeat

Athletics: The Irish women's 4 x 50 metres freestyle team attained a feat that rightly earned all-round applause during yesterday's morning heats in the European Short Course championships, chopping almost seven seconds off an 11-year-old national record by clocking one minute 42.32 seconds.

True, the pool is fast but it was a truly special performance of steely conviction by four girls who are virtually in full-time training at colleges abroad.

Julie Douglas, Lee Kelleher, Emma Robinson and Chantal Gibney combined to produce a cool and fluent display but the harsh reality was that they were fractionally edged out of a final place, a situation that underlines rapidly improving standards.

Ireland manager Ger Doyle was warm in his praise of the talented quartet: "It was unfortunate for them not to make the final but who could ask anything more of them?"

US collegiate star Gibney, home on vacation, said: "I am delighted. It's the best relay swim I ever raced. It's not often we get the chance to swim relay at this level because there are rarely full teams sent away."

Sweden duly took their place among the last eight in the 4 x 50 in a time of 1:40.29 but even they saw their world record smashed by Holland (1:38.13) in heat one.

When it came to the final, the Dutch shifted up another gear to smash the world record again with 1:37.52. Runners-up Sweden were also inside the old figures.

Elsewhere Ireland's Stephen Manley broke 50 seconds in heat five of the 100 metres freestyle but still failed by a long way to reach the final. Claire Hogan set a personal best 1:04.16 and was unfortunate not to reach the semi-finals of the 100 metres individual medley. Lee Kelleher clocked 1:05.57 to rank 24th.

Donal O'Neill was outside his best in the heats of the 50 metres backstroke and ended up 38th.

Julie Douglas also finished 38th, her time in the 50 metres butterfly 28.28. Lee Kelleher ranked 43rd in 28.94.

Meanwhile, Germany's Antje Buschschulte won the 100 metres backstroke and said: "I did almost everything wrong from the turns to the touch."

l Yesterday we referred to Matjaz Markic (100m breaststroke) and Blaz Medvesek (200m backstroke) as Slovakian. They are in fact Slovenian.