Three Irish swimmers have now qualified for the World Championships in Budapest on August after 17-year-old Conor Ferguson won gold in the 50m backstroke on the final day of competition at the Irish Open at the NAC in Dublin.
Ferguson won the title in 25.24 seconds, a new Irish junior record, but more importantly he was .05 of a second under the consideration time for this summer’s World Championships.
Before Ferguson’s impressive swim, 24-year-old Jordan Sloan from Bangor and 16-year-old Mona McSharry - who hails from Sligo but swims out of the Marlins Club in Ballyshannon - had already made the plane to Hungary.
Sloan qualified for the 200m freestyle, while McSharry, a double medallist from the junior Europeans last year, made it through in the women's 100m breaststroke earlier in this week.
McSharry today set a new Irish junior record of two minutes 29.22 seconds as she won the 200m breaststroke title.
Ireland’s other world championship contenders are likely to be US and Canadian-based Olympians Shane Ryan and Fiona Doyle, who will be given extra time to make the Worlds having missed this event.
The only Irish senior record on the final day of competition fell in the men’s 200m individual medley when James Brown of Ards sliced 1.35 seconds off the 2012 record held by Johnny P Quinn.
Brown, a semi-finalist in the event at the European Games in Baku in 2015, won in a time of 2:2.90, the 10th Irish senior record of the four day meet.
Nicholas Quinn, who competed for Ireland in the Rio Olympics last year, won his favourite event, the men's 200m breaststroke in 2:14.07 to add to his win in the 100m earlier this week.
