Gráinne deserves more from sport she helped rescue

Few sports in this country owe as much to one athlete in recent years as swimming does to Gráinne Murphy.

A decade or so ago, whenever you heard the words ‘Irish swimming’, you immediately thought of Michelle de Bruin and all that tainted gold, the wicked acts of men like Derry O’Rourke, George Gibney and Frank McCann, the seemingly interminable debate about the lack of a national 50m pool. But then along came the University of Limerick with the vision and boldness to build a full-length international pool and then along came Gráinne Murphy from Wexford, between them helping bring a sport from the murky backwaters of the 20th century into the crystal-clean new waters of the 21st. If anybody personified how removed the sport was from the days of the old, discredited Irish Amateur Swimming Association and typified the image of the slick, progressive, professional new Swim Ireland, it was Murphy.

She was the face of the brand and the sport: clean, talented, hardworking.