Meegan star of show as six records set

Six records were set on the final day of the Irish Short Course Swimming Championships in Lisburn.

Andrew Meegan was the star of the show when he became the first Irishman to swim under eight minutes in the 800m freestyle. Meegan, who held the record of 8:00.59 in 2012 came home in 7:59.92 in last night’s final.

Second placed Brendan Gibbons also had cause to celebrate as his time of 8:06.29 bettered his national junior record of 8:09.02 which he set on Saturday. Earlier in the day Antoinette Neamt raced to gold in the 1500m Freestyle final in a junior record 16:40.22 — well clear of Ali Berry (17:20.30) and Lucy Gaynor (17:46.50).

Shauna O’Brien broke her second senior record of the championship in the 50m butterfly final (27.14) .16 of a second faster than she swam at last year’s event. Barry Murphy won the men’s event in 23.93 seconds.

Gráinne Murphy picked up her third gold in the 400m individual medley final (4:52.73) while in the men’s event Brendan Hyland led the field home in 4:21.38 ahead of Ben Griffin (4:29.78) and Ronan Anderson (4:32.39).

Chelsey Wilson won the 100m backstroke in 1:02.54 while Brian O’Sullivan set his sixth junior record of the weekend (54.17) in the equivalent final.

In the 200m freestyle finals, the titles were claimed by Bethany Carson in 2:00.84 and Curtis Coulter in 1:49.47 while Dearbhail McNamara and Andrew Moore claimed the breaststroke titles over the same distance. In the final event of the weekend Galway’s women (1:49.15) and Ards Men (1:33.27) won the 4x50m freestyle relays.