Danielle Hill qualified for her second Olympic Games after taking down her own Irish record in the 100m backstroke on day one of the Irish open at the NAC in Dublin.
Hill, who set an Irish record in the event of one minute 00.16 seconds in April, was targeting the Olympic qualifying time of 59.99 in Wednesday evening's final.
Racing in lane four, Hill took the two-length final out fast in 28.49 seconds at the turn and powered home in a winning time of in 59.11.
In the men’s event, Conor Ferguson was hoping to join Hill on the plane to Paris but was unable to better his time from the heats and clocked 54.12 in winning the final.
Ferguson will have another opportunity to make the OQT in the 'super final' on Thursday as Swim Ireland gives its top athletes every opportunity to make the Games in Paris.
Earlier, double world champion Daniel Wiffen, who has already qualified for Paris, was once again under the OQT in the 800m freestyle heats in 7:51.47.
Wiffen set a new championship record in the event, just 10 minutes after his twin brother Nathan had broken his own 2023 championship record of 8:03.79 in a personal best of 7:56.40.
The Loughborough swimmers will go again inThursday’s 800m freestyle final, with Nathan targeting the OQT of 7:51.65.
Evan Bailey set an Irish junior record in the heats of the 200m freestyle, winning the final in a slower time of 1:48.73 to edge out Tokyo Olympian Finn McKeever.
In the 200m individual medley, Ellen Walshe, who secured the OQT at the 2023 World Championships, swam a speedy 2:11.95 to earn the top seed for the final.
However, the Templeogue swimmer, who is targeting the longer 400m individual medley OQT, withdrew from the final and the gold medal went to Elle McCartney in 2:14.92.
Grace Hodgins led the rankings in the 1500m freestyle heats, going fastest in 17:07.38 with the decider on Thursday evening
Banbridge’s Alana Burns-Atkin was top seed for the 200m butterfly final and duly won the event in 2:17.77.
