Swim Ireland has confirmed that Ellen Walshe is eligible to be nominated for a place on the Irish Olympic team in Tokyo.
The 20-year-old won the 200m individual medley at the National Aquatic Centre last week, breaking the Irish record twice and swimming 0.44 of a second under the Olympic qualifying time for the event.
However, Swim Ireland's policy had been that only the 10 swimmers who came within 1.5% of a FINA 'A' time at the first Irish trials - the Irish Open meet at the NAC in April - would be eligible for Olympic nomination, and Walshe was not among them.
A statement today though said: "The Swim Ireland Board, having considered the Swim Ireland Olympic Nomination Policy and taking into account the organisation’s ‘athlete first’ ethos, has confirmed that Ellen Walshe is eligible to be nominated by Swim Ireland to the Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI) to compete at the Olympic Games later this month.
"The OFI are on notice of this. Ellen Walshe will now be considered for nomination to the OFI by the Swim Ireland Selection Panel when they meet later this week."
Walshe is the sixth Irish swimmer to achieve a FINA ‘A’ standard time, joining Darragh Greene (100m Breaststroke, 200m breaststroke), Shane Ryan (100m backstroke), Daniel Wiffen (800m freestyle), Mona McSharry (100m breaststroke) and Danielle Hill (100m backstroke).
