Ireland Makes History With First 2 World Juniors Medals

6TH FINA WORLD JUNIOR SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Wednesday, August 23 – Monday, August 28, 2017
• 50-Meter Course
• Indianapolis (USA)
• Heats 9:30 am EDT / Semifinals and Finals 6 pm EDT (GMT-5)
• Meet Central
• Meet info
• Schedule
• Entries book
• Omega results
• TV/Webcast schedule (USA)
• Live stream NBC Sports
• Live stream FINA (Heats and finals, for subscribers only. Not available in USA, Guam, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Brazil, South Africa, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Brunei, China)
• Live stream FINA YouTube (Heats only, free of charge)

In an historic night for Irish swimming Conor Ferguson and Mona McSharry collected Silver and Bronze medals at the World Junior Swimming Championships in Indianapolis, Ireland’s first medals in the sixth edition of the event. The result follows Shane Ryan’s 50m Backstroke Gold medal win at the World University Games yesterday, Ireland’s first gold medal in the pool at the event in 26 years.

After cruising to victory his semi-final swim last night, Conor Ferguson battled to a Silver medal in the 100m Backstroke Final tonight. The 17-year-old was in fourth place at the halfway mark but a speedy 27.96 second half saw the Bangor swimmer touch in 54.51 seconds for Ireland’s first World Junior Championship medal.

Spain’s Hugo Gonzalez set a new meet record for the gold medal in 54.27 while Romania’s Daniel Martin was third in 54.55.

Mona McSharry added World Junior Bronze in the 50m Breaststroke to her European Junior Title. In an extremely tight contest the Marlins Donegal swimmer touched in 30.97 seconds, winning Ireland’s second medal in just 20 minutes.

USA’s Emily Weiss captured gold in 30.78 and Canada’s Faith Knelson was just six hundredths of a second ahead of McSharry for silver in 30.91 seconds.

After their medal winning performances Ferguson (Backstroke) and McSharry (Breaststroke) returned to the pool for the final of the Mixed Medley Relay. Joined by Ellen Walshe (Butterfly) and Robbie Powell (Freestyle), the quartet took almost two seconds off the Irish Senior Record in the event finishing sixth in 3 minutes 52.38 seconds. Ferguson and McSharry with Emma Reid and Gerry Quinn had held the previous record at 3:54.09.

Speaking after the relay a delighted Ferguson said “It’s great to get a medal at the start of meet and that sets me up well for the 200m (Backstroke) later-on.  I felt really honoured to lead out the relay team on the world stage and feel proud that the four of us broke the Irish Senior Record”.

McSharry commented “I’m pleased with a medal at the beginning of the meet particularly when my focus is on the Olympic events (100m, 200m Breaststroke). The relay final was a proud moment too, spectacular for all of us. I love moments like that and hope we have many more between now and Tokyo”.

Ferguson, McSharry, Walshe and Powell are all back in action tomorrow (Friday), Ferguson in the 50m Backstroke, McSharry and Niamh Coyne in the 100m Breaststroke, Walshe in the 50m Butterfly and Powell in the 50m Freestyle.

At the World University Games today Darragh Greene secured his place in the 50m Breaststroke Final. In this morning’s heat’s the UCD swimmer broke 28 seconds for the first time touching in 27.87 seconds, then in the semi-final he secured a place in tomorrow’s (Friday) Final in another best time of 27.85 seconds.

World Junior Championships

Day 2 Results

Thursday 24^th August

200m Butterfly                  Ellen Walshe                       H 2:19.22 (25^th)

200m Freestyle                  Jack McMillan                     H 1:51.12 (17^th)

400m Medley Relay          Ireland (Mixed)                   H 3:54.12 (5^th)     F 3:52.38 (6^th) ISR

50m Breaststroke              Mona McSharry                  H 31.41 (3^rd)         SF 31.09 (1^st)        F 30.97 (3^rd)

100m Backstroke               Conor Ferguson                  H 54.95 (1^st)         SF 54.53 (2^nd)       F 54.51 (2^nd) 

Day 3 Schedule

Friday 25^th August (2.30pm)

50m Butterfly                     Ellen Walshe

50m Backstroke                 Conor Ferguson

100m Breaststroke            Mona McSharry, Niamh Coyne

50m Freestyle                    Robbie Powell

World University Games

Day 5 Results

200m Backstroke               David Prendergast              H 2:09.81 (35^th)

Rory McEvoy                       H 2:06.23 (28^th)

100m Butterfly                  Conor Brines                       H 53.75 (25^th)

Brendan Hyland                  H 53.49 (19^th)

50m Breaststroke              Darragh Greene                  H 27.87 (7^th)         SF 27.85 (8^th)

Day 6 Schedule (Heats 2am/Finals 12pm)

50m Freestyle                    Calum Bain

3M Springboard                 Natasha MacManus

50m Breaststroke Final     Darragh Greene

H – Heat/SF – Semi-Final/F – Final/P – Preliminary/ISR – Irish Senior Record/IJR – Irish Junior Record

WUG Results/Schedule: Click HERE (Heats 2am/Finals 12pm)

WJC Results/Schedule: Click HERE (Heats 2.30pm/Finals 11pm)

Swimming News Courtesy: Swim Ireland