Castletroy student claims silver at European Championship

WEXFORD athlete Gráinne Murphy, who attends Castletroy College and trains in the University of Limerick, won a silver medal at the European Swimming Championships in Budapest, Hungary on Saturday.


The 17-year-old Irish swimming sensation knocked eight seconds off the Irish record in the 1500m freestyle final finishing second to Denmark’s Lottie Friis in a time of 16.02.29, cutting a further eight seconds off the Irish record set in the heats, the second fastest time in the world this year. Gráinne Murphy is the first Irish swimmer to win a medal at the European Championships since Michelle Smith de Bruin proved successful at the championship 13 years ago.
“I just kept focusing on my own race. I didn’t allow my head to wander into any of the others lanes to see what they were doing,” said a very relaxed Murphy after the race.
“I took a different approach to my race today as I did in the heats yesterday after discussing race tactics with my coach Ronald and it really paid off. It felt amazing to win a medal at this kind of meet and standing on the podium beside Lotte Friis just felt brilliant!”
Grainne Murphy’s training regime at Swim Ireland’s University of Limerick High Performance Centre is under the guidance of coach Ronald Claes and is supported by Swim Ireland and the Irish Sports Council.
On Friday Gráinne Murphy knocked an astonishing 18 seconds off her own Irish record in the heats of the demanding 1,500 metres freestyle event.
Gráinne’s time of 16.10.32 placed the 17-year-old Wexford girl as the fastest qualifier by two and a half seconds and raised Irish hopes of winning a precious medal.
Gráinne showed no ill effects from her swim in the 800 metre freestyle final on Thursday when she narrowly missed out on the bronze medal by just five-hundredths of a second. Gráinne finished her 16 lengths of the pool in a world-class time of 8.25.04, a time which rewrote the Irish record books and indeed lowered the Irish senior record by almost four seconds - an 11-second improvement that the young swimmer made to the record since she arrived in Budapest.
Gráinne began her week at the European Swimming Championships with a seventh place finish in the 400 metre individual medley on Monday.

BRIAN MCDONNELL