17-year-old five-hundredths of a second shy of bronze

GRÁINNE MURPHY suffered heartbreak at the European Swimming Championships in Budapest yesterday as she was just five-hundredths of a second shy of winning the bronze medal for Ireland.

The 17-year-old from Ballinaboola, Co Wexford finished her 16 lengths of the pool in the 800m freestyle in a world-class time of 8.25.04.

But her fourth place swim nevertheless rewrites the Irish record books and indeed lowers the Irish senior record again, by almost four seconds — an 11-second improvement that the young swimmer has made to the record since she arrived in Budapest. Murphy is also Ireland’s only finalist at a European Long Course Swimming Championships in the last 10 years.