SWIMMING:GRÁINNE MURPHY won an unexpected bronze in the women's 800 metres freestyle at the European Short Course (25 metre) championships at the Pieter Van den Hoogenband Stadium in Eindhoven yesterday.

With coach Ronald Clases stating the meet in the Netherlands was not a priority for her, Murphy’s bronze came despite the fact she is still in heavy training and has only had two days’ rest after three weeks’ altitude training at Fonteneau in France.

The last time Ireland medalled in a 25-metre European Championship was in 2003 when Andrew Bree won silver in the men’s 200 metres breastroke at the NAC in Dublin, and Murphy’s bronze adds to the silver she took in the European Long Course (50 metres) 1,500 freestyle back in August.

Swimming in the one of two heats, with the medals won on time rather than in a straight final, the Co Wexford swimmer, based in the high-performance centre in Limerick, took the bronze behind Italian great Frederica Pelligrini and Hungary’s Boglarka Kapas, smashing her Irish record by 16 second in the process.

But it was a long wait for Murphy to see if she had won a place on the podium.

Murphy’s entry time was the Irish record of eight minutes 35.24 seconds, a standard she had registered at the previous European Short Course Championships in Istanbul Turkey last December. Thus she and Pelligrini, the double world champion, were forced to swim in the slower morning heat.

Murphy led Pelligrini, who pipped her to the bronze in the event in the Long Course Europeans, through the first 400 metres, dropping the rest of the field.

However, the 22-year-old Italian, who won gold in the 200 and 400 metres freestyle at last year’s world championships in Rome, showed her class over the back end of the race, overtaking the Irish teenager and eventually winning the heat in eight mins 15.20 seconds.

Murphy came home in second place in a time of eight minutes 19.45 seconds, which at that stage was the fourth fastest time in the world this year and then the pair had to wait until the second heat, officially classed as the “fastest heat” which was the first event of the evening session.

It looked for a long time in that second heat Murphy would hang on for the silver, as after 500 metres, Hungarian Boglarka Kapas led, but was over three seconds in arrears of Murphy’s time at that stage.

But the 17-year-old, who won gold in the women’s 200 metres butterfly at the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games, produced an excellent last 300 metres and began to eat into Murphy’s time.

With one hundred metres to swim Kapas had reduced the gap to less than half a second and finished well with a 61.44-second last 100 to snatch the silver medal from the Irish swimmer.

“The bronze medal is a bonus” said Murphy “I was really only coming to Eindhoven to see how I am going in training. I watched the second heat and the Hungarian girl (Kapas) came through really strongly at the end. She was happy with her swim and I was happy with mine”

All three Irish swimmers will be in action today, Murphy competes in the 400 metres freestyle along with Melanie Nocher, who holds the Irish record in the event in 4:05.89, set just two weeks ago at Loughborough University.

“I didn’t really know how the 800 was going to go and I have no idea how I will do in the 400. It’s not one of my strong events, but I’ll get in and see what happens”

Aisling Cooney competes in the women’s 50 metres backstroke today.