Murphy laying it on line for tilt at Long Course

Dubliner Barry Murphy could have turned his back on swimming and considered retirement after not being selected by the Olympic Council for the 2008 Games in Beijing while others of lesser credentials got in ahead of him.

But he didn’t want to quit the sport he loved and set out to prove the doubters wrong, putting his heart and soul into training. Last December he earned his reward, a first European medal.

Swimming in the final out in lane eight, on that cold evening in Herning on the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark, Murphy won a bronze medal in the men’s 50m breaststroke at the European Short Course meet. After all the effort, all the strife, all that sacrifice, the 28-year-old had his medal.