Seven of Ireland’s top swimmers are making final preparations as they travel to Berlin, Germany this week for the 2014 LEN European Swimming and Open Water Championships.
Clare’s Chris Bryan is the first Irish swimmer in action when he takes on the 10K Open Water event at the ‘Regattastrecke Grünau’ on Thursday. Bryan finished 16th at last year’s World Championships in Barcelona and a win at the LEN 10K European Open Water Cup in Hoorn, Holland earlier this month will give him confidence going into Thursday’s race.
The 24 year old who swims at Swim Ireland’s Performance Centre at UL Sport in Limerick has also opted to swim the gruelling 25 kilometre Open Water race at this year’s Championships.
2013 World University Games Silver medallist Fiona Doyle leads a team of 6 in the specially built 50m pool at Berlins Velodrome starting on Monday 18th August. Doyle, who is based at the University of Calgary will swim all three (50m, 100m, 200m) Breaststroke events and will be joined by Sycerika McMahon as Ireland’s only female swimmers at the event. McMahon is coming off the back of the Commonwealth Games and will be looking to improve her performances in Berlin.
Irish record holders Barry Murphy and Brendan Hyland will be keen to make their mark in Berlin. Murphy won 50m Breaststroke Bronze at the European Short Course (25m) Championships in December and will be looking to replicate that swim in Berlin. Hyland attends his first European Long Course Championships.
Nicholas Quinn and Dan Sweeney will be making their first appearances at a senior European Championship. Quinn, based at the University of Edinburgh and Sweeney in Loughborough University are both Breaststrokers with the 200m their favoured events.
Speaking prior to the event Swim Ireland High Performance Director Peter Banks commented “European’s this year is an important time in the 2016 Olympic cycle, these championships will give us a good indication of what swimmers are on track and how we formulate our plans for the next 2 years in the lead up to Rio 2016”.
