Galway's John Shortt set a new Irish record in the 200m backstroke on the penultimate day of competition at the Irish Open Swimming Championships in Bangor.
The 19-year-old, who is the reigning European short course champion in the same event, paced the race to perfection to win in a time of 1:55.70, breaking the record he set himself just three weeks ago at the Giant Open in Paris.
Shortt’s time is the fifth fastest time in the world this year.
"Yeah, it did," Shortt said when asked if it hurt. "It was brilliant. I was pretty good for January and February, but then it really took it up a notch then in March when we went to Paris.
"Is always nice to be up competing with those big lads (at the top of the world rankings) and that's where I need to be right now is to be around that 1.55, and hopefully 1.54 territory at some point.
"Right now it's three really solid swims here and I can't really ask for much more, three out of three personal bests"
Olympic 800 metre freestyle champion Daniel Wiffen and his twin brother Nathan won their heats of the 400m freestyle to advance to the final with Daniel winning in 3.49.35 and Nathan swimming a dead heat for second with Cormac Rynn.
The siblings will also contest the men’s 800 freestyle on Sunday, the last day of competition in Bangor.
Olympic finalist Ellen Walshe won her fourth gold medal of the meet in the women’s 400m freestyle, winning comfortably in 4.12.54 having already claimed national titles in the 100m and 200m butterfly and the 400m individual medley.
Mona McSharry won her third breaststroke title of the championships in the 100m event. The Olympics bronze medallist clocked 1:06.27, the sixth fastest time in the world this year.
Jack Kelly won a cracking men’s 100m breaststroke final in 59.90 secs to complete the breaststroke sweep, having already won 50m and 200m titles this week.
Lotte Cullen and Grace Davidson produced one the races of the week in the women’s 200m backstroke, with the pair matching each other stroke for stroke over the four lengths of the decider with Cullen winning in 2.12.23, a mere 0.14 ahead of Davidson.
Davidson takes silver to add to her gold medals in the women’s 100 and 100 freestyle earlier this week.
Tomorrow’s heats on the final day are off at 10am with the finals at 4.30pm.
