Irish swimmer Sycerika McMahon won five gold medals on the opening day of the Irish Short Course swimming championships in Lisburn yesterday.

It was only a four-hundredths of a second gap, but it was enough for Karl Burdis to qualify for May’s European Championships in Hungary last night.

Although Olympic qualification was an unlikely prospect during the second night of Irish Long-Course Championship finals, there were other prospects.

THE final day of the Irish Open Short Course Championships kicked off with an Irish senior record from Barry Murphy in the heats of the 50m butterfly (24.03), where he knocked half a second off the old record which has stood since 2002.

TWO-TIME Olympian Andrew Bree leads the Irish squad at the European Long Course Swimming Championships in Budapest, which commences today.

BELFAST’S Melanie Nocher yesterday smashed Michelle Smith’s 14-year-old Irish 200m backstroke record at the Speedo western Canadian swimming championships.

IRISH swimmers smashed 11 national records in the last week.

Swim Ireland (SI) has announced the Irish swimmers who have qualified to compete in this year’s European Senior and Junior Championships.