SWIMMING World Championships: IRISH SWIMMING'S new era under Peter Banks, its new high performance coach, showed yet more progression when seven individual and two relay squad members set five senior and one junior record at the World Championships at the Stadio del Nuoto here in Rome.
Two of those new standards were particularly significant, as Dubliner Barry Murphy broke through the 50-second barrier for the 100 metres freestyle, the first time it has been achieved by an Irishman.
He registered a time of 49.98 seconds in the lead-off leg for the 4x100 metres freestyle relay squad on day one of the action in the pool.
Limerick’s Fiona Doyle did likewise as part of the women’s relay squad in an Irish record of 56.57 seconds.
Both squads also set Irish standards.
The women, which included Doyle, Clare Dawson, Olympian Melanie Nocher and Niamh O’Sullivan, cut a massive six seconds of the old Irish best.
“It was obviously a goal coming into this meet to break the 50 seconds,” said Murphy, who is based in Tennessee.
“After my swims in Belgrade (at the World University Games) I knew I would do it here. Although the 50 free is my main event, I’ve been working on the 100 and I’m so pleased with the result.
“It’s only a couple of years since the 50 seconds was broken in the 25-metre pool, now were are breaking it long course and, now that we are through it, it’s just going to start falling rapidly now into to the 48s and 47 seconds for the event.”
The other major milestone was set by Gráinne Murphy. The 16-year-old from New Ross, who is part of the high performance centre in Limerick, broke Michelle Smith DeBruin’s 13-year-old Irish record in the heats of the 200 metres Individual Medley.
Not only did her heat-winning time of two minutes 13.64 seconds better Smith DeBruin’s record by over half-a-second, but it also erased from the record books the time Smith DeBruin posted in winning the gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.
Murphy came to Rome on the back of the three golds and a bronze she won at the junior Europeans, and her form has followed her to the Italian capitol.
The pity was that she just failed to make the semi-finals. An improvement of a mere .2 of a second would have put her through to the last 16 and a place on finals night last evening.
Other Irish records fell in the men’s 400 metres freestyle as Ryan Harrison cut a 10th of a second off the old time, and Nuala Murphy set a junior record in the women’s equivalent.
Nine of the 13-strong Irish squad are in action on day two the championships.
Aisling Cooney and Melanie Nocher race in the heats of the 100 metres backstroke, while Conor Leaney and Ryan Harrison go in the 200 freestyle.
Others in action are Fiona Doyle (100 breaststroke), Donal O’Neill and Karl Burdis (100 backstroke), along with Gráinne and Nuala Murphy (1,500 metres freestyle).
RECORDS TUMBLE
FIVE WORLD records fell on the opening day of competition.
Italy's Federica Pellegrini bettered her record to claim gold in the 400 metres freestyle in three minutes 59.15 seconds.
American Ariana Kukors shattered the 200 metres individual medley record in the semi-finals in 2:07.03.
Sweden's Sarah Sjostrom broke the 100 metres butterfly record, also in the semi-finals, in 56.44.
Germany's Paul Biedermann broke Ian Thorpe's mark to win the 400 metres freestyle final in 3:40.07 and the Dutch women's 4 x 100m relay team took almost two seconds off their own mark.
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