By John Kenny
The battle between London 2012 Olympian Grainne Murphy and last year’s gold-medallist, 14-year-old Antoinette Neamt from Tallaght, will be one of the highlights of the Irish Open Swimming Championship.
The Irish Open, which is a qualifier for this August World championships in Kazan in Russia, got under way this morning at the National Aquatic Centre in Dublin.
The women's 800m freestyle promises to be an engrossing contest, where Murphy will race against 14-year-old Neamt.
Elsewhere, Brendan Hyland, who swam for Ireland in last year’s European Championships in Berlin, goes in the final of the men's 200m butterfly hoping to get close or under the world championship qualifying time of 1 minute 57.37 seconds, a time which is over a second faster than his own Irish senior record.
The finals begin at 5.30pm.
Meanwhile, Shane Ryan, a former member of the USA national team, has announced on his Facebook page that he is moving to Ireland next month to begin pursuing a goal of representing Ireland at the 2016 Olympics.
Ryan’s father, Thomas, is Irish, which gives his son the opportunity to change sports citizenship. He will have to live in Ireland for 12 months and wait a year to represent Swim Ireland internationally.
The last meet Ryan competed in for Team USA was the Duel in the Pool in December 2013.
The 21-year-old’s best time in the 100m backstroke is 53.84 seconds, which is faster than the national record of 54.44 held by Karl Burdis.
His 100 freestyle best time is 49.27, faster than Ryan Harrison’s Irish senior record of 49.49. a few tenths shy of the 'A' qualification mark for the Rio Olympics.
