The tie was enough for fourth place in his heat and an 11-place jump in the 100m Butterfly rankings but he missed out on a semi-final spot.

Ryan beat fellow Olympian Brendan Hyland’s record of 52.58 that he had held since December, achieved in a race in which he beat Ryan.

Hyland had also owned the record previous to that, which he set back in 2018 at the National Championships.

The Irish swimmer started the race strong and was fourth after the first length.

He finished off a consistent and strong swim to seal the Irish senior record and bring the curtains down on his Tokyo 2020 journey.

Ryan becomes the fourth Irish swimmer to set a new Irish senior record at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

It’s a suitable high-note to bring his second Olympic Games to a close after having to pull out of his main event, the 100m backstroke, due to injury.

The 27-year-old had been forced to pull out after suffering from persistent shoulder pain.

Ryan had also competed in the Men’s 4×200 Freestyle Relay alongside Hyland, Finn McGeever and Jack McMillan.

The group finished eighth in their semi-final and fourteenth overall.

The swimmer noted that he wanted to enjoy a stress-free swim in his final event after the time that he has had.

“I’m super happy to end on that, especially with all of the injuries I’ve been going through,” Ryan told RTÉ after the race.

“I never swam it like that before and I think I have a lot more to offer.”

Ryan’s head will now turn towards qualification Paris 2024 as the Ben Higson product will aim to represent his country at the third consecutive Olympic Games.

The post Shane Ryan Breaks Irish Senior Record In 100m Butterfly appeared first on SportsNewsIreland.

Nine Irish swimmers are set to compete in Tokyo across 14 events and will be in action in the newly built Tokyo Aquatics Centre from Saturday 24 July – Sunday 1 August 2021.

The strength and depth of Irish swimming has been on display over the past number of years, culminating this year with the ultimate qualification of six swimmers who have achieved the FINA A time across their events.

Jon Rudd, National Performance Director and Team Leader for the Games is excited to see the swimmers in action.

He said: “The standard of swimming in Ireland is growing, and without all these athletes striving for improvement, we would not be where we are today, fielding the largest ever swim team for Ireland.”

25-year-old Darragh Greene from Longford is one of the nine swimmers travelling to Tokyo.

Coached by Ben Higson, who has two other swimmers making the trip to Japan, Greene will compete in 100m and 200m breaststroke events.

It will be the first Olympic Games for the first Irishman to swim the 100m breaststroke in under one minute.

The Irish senior record holder for both events said that “the Olympics have been something that [he has] dreamt about for a long time, and it is a real honour to be officially selected to compete for Team Ireland in Tokyo.”

Other swimmers on the team include record-holders such as Mona McSharry and Tipperary native Finn McGeever.

Team Ireland Chef de Mission for Tokyo 2020, Tricia Heberle, is excited by the large number of qualified swimmers.

She believes it’s especially encouraging seeing the number of FINA A standard swimmers qualifying.

Heberle concluded: “The past year has been tough for everyone, but seeing how our swimmers handled that first lockdown, coming out of it producing personal bests and national records, in challenging circumstances has been a true test of resilience.”

Team Ireland Swim Team For Tokyo 2020

Darragh Greene

Danielle Hill

Brendan Hyland

Finn McGeever

Jack McMillan

Mona McSharry

Shane Ryan

Ellen Walshe

Daniel Wiffen

The post Team Ireland Names Largest National Swim Team For Tokyo 2020 appeared first on SportsNewsIreland.

“I knew I could do a lot better than what my PB was but no can’t say I was expecting that”

The Irish National Swimming trials in Dublin this week has brought some surprises with records broken and people qualifying for the Tokyo Olympic games.

Well, that was exciting! This evenings @swimireland trials saw an exciting new senior record from Finn McGeever, beating Jack McMillian’s 2019 400 metre freestyle record with a time of 3.52.83!

He also has a very important lab report for the evening to tuck into pic.twitter.com/lKKEDb7oKH

— Joanne O’ Riordan (@JoanneOR_Ox) April 22, 2021

But the biggest surprise may have come in the men’s 400m freestyle final. 17-year-old Liam Custer came in as favourite with Dean Power next and then Finn McGeever.

Finn, a 20-year-old University of Limerick student, started fast but was expected to fade off towards the end of the race.

To the small crowds surprise the lead kept growing until he finished in first breaking the Irish record for the event in a time of 5.52.83.

In his post-race interview he shared what spurred him on: “Between you and me, what got me through the race was that this was the last (400m freestyle) that I was going to do for a while like, you know, I’ve just got (100m freestyle) tomorrow, it’s all down hill from here, I’m just delighted with that.”

Finn is already part of the 4x200m freestyle relay that is on the cusp of qualifying for Tokyo. The record that he broke belonged to his teammate Jack McMillan for three years.

The young Tipperary swimmer came into the final as the slowest of the three, but he managed to knock almost a whopping 15 seconds off his preliminary time.

Although he managed to set a new Irish record with his nearest competitor Custer coming in seven seconds behind him, he would need to cut another six seconds from his time to make the Olympic qualifying time.

Life seems to be coming fast for the young athlete, but he remains down to earth saying that he won’t be relaxing or celebrating the new record.

“Well I’ve actually got a lab report due tomorrow at 5pm so I got to hack away at that.”

Tweets by swimireland

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