– Niall Kelly reports from Rio de Janeiro
SHANE RYAN COULDN’T quite hit the heights of earlier today as he bowed out of the 100m backstroke at the semi-final stage.
Ryan set a new PB and national record (53.85) in qualifying to become the first Irish swimmer to make an Olympic semi since Andrew Bree in 2008.
Drawn in lane one tonight, he hit the turn in sixth place, just 0.36 seconds behind eventual winner Ryan Murphy.
But he was caught over the final 50 metres to finish eighth in a time of 54.40, and 16th overall.
Heat winner Murphy set the fastest overall time of 52.49, one-hundredth of a second faster than his Team USA colleague David Plummer who won the second semi-final.
Earlier, Adam Peaty smashed his own world record in the 100m breaststroke as he claimed Britain’s first gold medal of the 2016 Games.
The 21-year-old stormed home in 57.13, well clear of Cameron van der Burgh (58.69) and Cody Miller (58.87) who took silver and bronze.
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No shame in it when you see the margins they’re fighting for. These bigger countries have a deep pool of talent to choose from, but people also have to pay attention to the fact they also send a lot of young swimmers with their more established competitors. They induct them into that experience of being in an Olympics, seeing how their more experienced athletes operate and they will take that into their next Olympics. We don’t have that system in Ireland. Only a limited number of swimmers go funded by Swim Ireland. I remember in 96 when a swimmer in my club, Adrian O Connor qualified we had to do a fundraiser so he could afford to go.
These swimmers you may not see in 4 years. Our development system is still not at the level of other countries and a certain age I think a lot of our swimmers maybe don’t feel the financial backing is enough to commit all of their time to competitive sport.