Fiona Doyle finished 12th in European Breaststroke semi-final

Fiona Doyle has ended her European Championships with a 12th place finish in the 50m Breaststroke semi-final at the London Aquatics Centre.

The University of Calgary swimmer had progressed to Saturday night’s 50m Breaststroke semi-final in 14th place with a heat time of 31.80 seconds and despite swimming a faster time of 31.66 seconds she ranked 12th overall and out of the finals positions.

“It definitely felt better than this morning but it’s been a really long week and at least for me the 50 Breast is a race I need to be fully rested for and firing on all cylinders.

“It was very difficult to get into the final tonight, everyone was swimming really fast and a lot of the girls pick and choose their events, some of them haven’t even swam this week so I’m happy with where I’m at for now. I didn’t rest that much for Europeans, Olympics is the goal so I’m pretty happy with the week.”

Doyle has had a solid week of swims as she prepares for the Rio Olympic Games this summer. The 24 year old progressed in all three breaststroke events and placed 4th in her main event, the 100m Breaststroke, on Wednesday.

Since qualifying for the Olympic Games in July 2015 she has had a long lead in to the Games in August and will continue her race preparation at the Mare Nostrum Meet in Barcelona next month and at another meet in LA in July. “After this I go into a four week block of really hard work, just getting back that aerobic fitness and really working on everything that we can in order to be prepared once the Olympics hit, so I can stand up on those blocks and hopefully final.”

The European Championships conclude in London on Sunday with one individual and one relay swim for Ireland. Sycerika McMahon swim's the 400m Freestyle while Ireland is entered in the 400m Medley Relay. Olympic Games qualifiers Shane Ryan (Backstroke) and Nicholas Quinn (Breaststroke) will be joined by Brendan Hyland (Butterfly) and Curtis Coulter (Freestyle) as they attempt to qualify an Ireland relay for the 2016 Olympic Games. The quartet will need to swim under three minutes 36 seconds combined to have a chance at qualification, the current Irish record stands at 3:39.87 from 2009.