SHANE RYAN HAS won bronze for Ireland at the World Short Course Swimming Championships in China.
Beating the Irish record he set yesterday, the 24-year-old put in a superb display to clock a time of 22.76 in the 50m backstroke final.
Just like in the semi-final, Ryan finished behind Russia’s Evgeny Rylov and Ryan Murphy of the USA in Hangzhou.
Ireland’s first-ever World Championships swimming medal, he adds this latest success to his World University Games gold and European bronze medals in the long course (50m) version of the event.
“I’m really really happy with how tonight went,” Ryan said. “I know with each race I wanted to get a little bit faster and just try to get my hand on the wall, tonight I’m happy I got my hand there, got a bronze medal and I’m glad that Ireland were on that podium with the flag raised.’
“It’s a great honour, it really is, every stroke I was racing I was thinking, I’ve got to get my hand to the wall, not only for me but for Ireland, my coaches, my team mates, it’s not just for me it’s for everyone else, Irish swimming is in the spot light, the future is really looking good for all of us.”
Earlier today, 17-year-old Niamh Coyle swam a personal best 1:07.19 in the 100m breastsroke.
#BRONZE medal🥉for @shaneryan001 at #FINAHangzhou2018! #Ireland 🇮🇪 has a #swimming world medallist! pic.twitter.com/KEG210HyTy
— IrishSportPower (@IrishSportPower) December 14, 2018
More to follow
Murray Kinsella, Gavan Casey and Eddie O’Sullivan preview another big weekend of Heineken Cup action and dissect the week’s main talking points.
Heineken Rugby Weekly on The42 / SoundCloud
Excellent performance, Fair Dues. Just a note to editor. Under the Headline it says he was 1st home, He came 3rd..
Well done lad and all the best for the future
Tis backwards he’s going!
Brilliant congratulations
Beats the Blac Bush…
Can’t help but be a little suspicious of all this. First of all, he’s american; but wasn’t considered good enough for their team, so sought out support through Irish ancestry. Then all of a sudden he’s breaking records, and shaving 2 tenths of a second off his own record within 24 hours… Red Flags everywhere. Does not compute. Hope I’m wrong.
@Juniper: Well his dad is Irish. Its also incredibly difficult to make the US team so even of you are at an elite level on the world stage you are by no means guaranteed, so he may or may not have been picked for the US team but he transferred a few years back so no goimg back now. At least with Ireland he is guaranteed to get picked for major championships. Regards shaving 2 tenths off his own record in 24 hours thats not exactly a huge deal in swimmimg, records are often shattered at championships as swimmers carefully taper for them. This is the short course championships so Im not sure if he even swam at a major short course meet before for Ireland.
Well done….but I do love the breast stroke!!
I wonder where those Irish swimmers initially trained. Lack of public infrastructure is shocking