Galway teenager John Shortt has added 50m backstroke bronze to the 100m backstroke gold he won earlier in the week at the World Aquatics Junior Swimming Championships in Romania.
In a thrilling race, where joint gold medals were awarded, the 18-year-old, swimming in an outside lane, took third in 25.06 seconds, lowering the lifetime best of 25.36 that he swam in Thursday’s semi-final.
The gold medals went to Italy’s Daniele del Signore and neutral athlete Georgii Iakovlev in 24.91.
Shortt, who received his Leaving Certificate results today, said: "It feels pretty good. Not unexpected, we knew we could do it tonight and I’ve got to shout out Roisin [physio] who got me right after the 100m back final. When you’ve got a lane, you’ve got a chance and that’s exactly what happened tonight."
"I thought my start wasn’t great... my feet kind of went down just a small bit when I pushed off, but my first 25m was pretty good.
"I had no idea what was going on around me so I just starting pulling like a dog and you know that was it, I touched the wall and got a medal, so happy out".
The National Centre Limerick swimmer will be back in the pool on Sunday for his main event the 200m backstroke. There is no semi-final in that event, the top eight swimmers from the heats progressing to Sunday evening’s final.
