Fiona Doyle has finished 14th overall in the 50m Breaststroke semi-final at the World Swimming Championships in Barcelona. The 21 year old was unable to better her Irish Record of 30.93 set earlier today, finishing 7th in her semi-final 2 in 31.52 seconds.
Speaking after the event Doyle said “It would have been nice to have snook into the 50 (Breaststroke) final but the last 4 months I’ve taken 1.2 seconds off my 50 Breaststroke, it would have been a big ask to take anymore off it. Overall I’m delighted with the Summer I’ve had, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the support of Swim Ireland, the Irish Sports Council and my coaches and I’m really excited to go from here and see what else I can do”.
For the second time today, the 50m Breaststroke World Record fell, this time broken by Lithuanian Ruta Meilutyte in 29.48 seconds, the 16 year old had also broken the 100m Breaststroke World Record earlier this week.
Ireland’s four swimmers have had a successful World Championship with all four securing World Top 20 places, 3 Semi-Finals and Three Irish Records in the 50m Butterfly (Barry Murphy), 100m Freestyle (Sycerika McMahon) and 50m Breaststroke (Fiona Doyle) over 2 weeks of competition.
Swim Ireland National Performance Director Peter Banks was impressed by the team’s performance saying “I’m really proud of all three swimmers in the pool and Chris Bryan in the Open Water. I think they gave a great account of themselves at this meet, we’ve had three semi-finals, three Irish Records and six World Top 20 performances over the two weeks” commented Banks “One of the things that impressed me here in the pool was the swimmers fast times in the morning, even if they didn’t make it back they were highly ranked and this has been a change from other years. It’s been a great start to a new 4 year cycle”.
Both Fiona Doyle and Barry Murphy will now travel to Eindhoven and Berlin to compete in the FINA Swimming World Cup before taking a break prior to the start of a new season in September. Sycerika McMahon will turn her attentions to her move to Texas A&M where she begins a swimming scholarship later this month.
There will be no further reports from the FINA World Swimming Championships.
50m Breaststroke Results
1st R Meilutyte Lithuania 29.48
2nd Y Efimova Russia 29.88
3rd J Hardy USA 29.90
8th J Johansson Sweden 30.66
14th F Doyle Ireland 31.52
World Championships Results Day 7
Fiona Doyle 50m Breaststroke H 30.93 (9th) SF 31.52 (14th)
