Bucking the standards that it had set headed into the year, Swimming Ireland has tabbed Barry Murphy as a surprise member of their 2013 World Championship Team that will head to Barcelona, Spain at the end of July.
Murphy joins Sycerika McMahon, Fiona Doyle, and open water swimmer Chris Bryan on a four-athelte squad for Worlds.
Murphy, who is a 50 meter specialist, missed the mandated standard in the 100 breaststroke at Ireland’s National Championships earlier this year. According to the standards laid out, athletes were only to qualify for Worlds in the Olympic events, which doesn’t include Murphy’s best race: the 50 breaststroke.
Swimming Ireland High Performance Director Peter Banks, however, intervened and recommend that Murphy be taken anyway on the basis of his 50m breaststroke, where a 27.53 currently ranks him 10th in the world in 2013.
And so the 27-year old from Dublin will carry on his tradition as the lead of Ireland’s male contingent, and be that gender’s lone pool swimmer in Barcelona.
He will be joined by two female swimmers, both breaststrokers, in McMahon and Doyle. McMahon was pre-qualified based on her performances at last summer’s Olympic Games, and thus trained through Ireland’s National Championships, meaning we still haven’t seen what she’s capable of this season. Doyle, however, has shown clearly what she’s capable of, breaking the Irish National Records in both the 100 (a record taken from McMahon) and 200 breaststrokes.
She’s trained at the University of Calgary in Canada and has had several good performances while swimming there as well; that includes a 1:08.23 in the long course 100 meter race to win the Irish title.
Bryan will also swim at the World University Games in Kazaan, Russia, just before heading to the World Championships, the organization announced.