Conor Ferguson Finishes Off 13-Record Week for Irish Swimming

EUROPEAN SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS 2017

• December, 13th to 17th
• Copenhagen, Denmark
• 25m course
• Entry lists
• Live timing
• Webcast (for Europe)
• Results

Conor Ferguson polished off a record-crushing weekend on Sunday at the 2017 European Short Course Championships with another National Record. In the heats of the 50 backstroke, he swam 23.97, and then dropped that to a 23.84 in the semi-final.

While that placed him just 13th and out of the final, both swims broke the Irish Junior Records and Irish Senior Records. The previous record of 24.26 was Ferguson’s from the 2017 Amsterdam Swim Cup in October.

Danielle Hill also broke the National Record in the 50 free prelims (25.49) and the men’s medley relay swam a 1:35.63, for yet another Irish National Record – done even without Ferguson on the relay.

“I’m really happy, it’s been great to end the meat off on a high, this week has given me more experience for the future,” Ferguson said of his week. “It was a bit of a rocky road at the start of the week, I was quite disappointed, but sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. I just had to change my mindset for the second half of the week and it definitely paid off.”

In total, 13 Irish Records were broken at this week’s championships. Combined with 16 more broken at the Irish Short Course Championships in Lisburn, 29 Irish Records were broken in the last 5 days.

If this fall was an early exam of the results of Jon Rudd’s tenure as the head of Swim Ireland’s National Performance program, the marks have been very high for immediate returns.

“This has been a fantastic week for Irish swimming; when you consider that we have broken 13 Irish records here in Copenhagen whilst another 16 records were broken back at home at our National Short Course Championships, you have to feel that we’re on the move as a collective,” Rudd said. “We’re certainly not where we want to be yet and there is much work still to be done, but Jordan Sloan and Mona McSharry in particular have shown what Irish athletes can achieve amongst world class opposition this last few days. We’re in a good place with our National Team, our National Squad and our National Centres and we’re about to launch what we believe is a very exciting coach development programme through and into Tokyo 2020. Irish swimming is on the move and we’re all enjoying the ride.”

In total, Irish Senior Records have gone down in at least 13 short course meters events since Rudd took over.