Swimmers break two Irish records in Olympic Trials

Two Irish records have been broken in the morning heats on day three of the Irish Swimming Championships and Olympic Trials at the National Aquatics Centre.

Michelle Smith's long-standing 100m butterfly record was the first to go, and by the narrowest of standards.

The triple Olympic gold medallist's time of 1:00.59, set at the European Championships in Vienna in 1996, was narrowly edged out of the record books by 20-year-old Lisburn swimmer Bethany Carson, whose new mark of 1:00.58 was one-hundredth of a second inside Smith's 15-year-old record.

Carson is now 0.32 of a second outside the European Championships qualifying time, but is delighted to have wiped one of the oldest records off the map.

She said: "To break Michelle Smith's record is something special. I was going for it, but wasn't sure if I was going to get it in the heats. I want to go even faster and hope I can.

"I am going to try and go for the European mark. I talked to my coach Paul Donovan before and Peter Banks (national coach) to try and relax the stroke so it just felt a lot more relaxed. I knew it was good, but wasn't sure how good."

Melanie Nocher's bid to qualify for the Olympic Games was further boosted by breaking her own Irish record in the 200 backstroke.

The Ards starlet recorded a time of 2:11.71, three-hundredths of a second inside her previous national standard.

Tonight's semi-finals and final are key for Nocher though, as she needs to find a further 0.9 seconds to make it to London.

Sycerika McMahon is also bidding to boost her Olympic qualifying bid tonight in the 400 freestyle.