Fiona Doyle has ended her European Championships with a 12th place finish in the 50m Breaststroke semi-final at the London Aquatics Centre.
The University of Calgary swimmer had progressed to tonight’s 50m Breaststroke semi-final in 14th place with a heat time of 31.80 seconds and despite swimming a faster time of 31.66 seconds she ranked 12th overall and out of the finals positions.
Doyle said: “It definitely felt better than this morning but it’s been a really long week and at least for me the 50 Breast is a race I need to be fully rested for and firing on all cylinders.”
“It was very difficult to get into the final tonight, everyone was swimming really fast and a lot of the girls pick and choose their events, some of them haven’t even swam this week so I’m happy with where I’m at for now. I didn’t rest that much for Europeans, Olympics is the goal so I’m pretty happy with the week.”
Doyle has had a solid week of swims as she prepares for the Rio Olympic Games this summer. The 24-year-old progressed in all three breaststroke events and placed fourth in her main event, the 100m Breaststroke, on Wednesday.
The European Championships conclude in London tomorrow with one individual and one relay swim for Ireland.
Sycerika McMahon swims the 400m Freestyle while Ireland is entered in the 400m Medley Relay.
Olympic Games qualifiers Shane Ryan (Backstroke) and Nicholas Quinn (Breaststroke) will be joined by Brendan Hyland (Butterfly) and Curtis Coulter (Freestyle) as they attempt to qualify an Ireland relay for the 2016 Olympic Games.
The quartet will need to swim under 3 minutes 36 seconds combined to have a chance at qualification, the current Irish record stands at 3:39.87 from 2009.
