Hyland Crushes Irish National Records on Day 3 at Euro Juniors

Day 3 of the 2012 European Junior Championships in Antwerp, Belgium is in the books, and perhaps the biggest headline on Friday wasn’t even from a winner, nor a medalist.

In the day’s first final, Ireland’s Brendan Hyland took 5th in the boys’ 200 fly with a 1:59.92. That not only breaks the Irish Junior Record, it breaks the Irish NATIONAL Record in the race, and makes him the first swimmer in the history of his country to go under two minutes. This is a swimmer who two years ago had a best time of only 2:19 in this race.

The winner of that race was Great Britain’s Matthew Johnson in 1:58.50, who in the process also broke his country’s National Record that was previously set by Robert Pavoni in 2009. Despite many of the elite juniors sitting out this year’s meet, these two record-breaking swims show the competition is still high.

The Brits made it back-to-back titles when Molly Renshaw took the girls’ 200 breaststroke in 2:27.66. A European Championship is little consolation for a near-miss at Olympic glory, but she could be huge in the next quadrennial.

German’s Oswald Maximillian, who had a superb relay-anchor leg, posted a best time of 49.68 to win the men’s 100 freestyle ahead of Russia’s Stepan Surkov. Sweden’s Oscar Ekstroem was 3rd in 50.35; he might be the next young male sprinter that Sweden has been waiting for the last 15 years as their current group is nearing retirement age.

Other National Records on the day came from Mie Neielsen, Denmark’s answer to Missy Franklin. She snapped the Meet Record in the women’s 50 backstroke in 28.51 (taking down a year-old mark held by Britain’s Lauren Quigley), and also broke the Danish Record of 28.64 that had beloned to Louise Oernstedts. She now holds both of the Danish National Records in the backstroke races, and based on this three-tenths improvement could battle for a 58 in the Olympic 100 in London.

Other Winners:

• Spain’s Albert Puig won the men’s 200 IM in 2:00.95. The Spanish are developing a good young IM core.
• Oleg Utekhin from Russia gave them an 8th meet title with a 27.57 in the boys’ 50 breaststroke.

Full Meet Results available here.

Thanks to Danish obsessor correspondent Chris DeSantis for contributing to this report.