DUBLIN, Ireland, April 25. ANDREW Meegan's national record in the 1500 freestyle highlighted the first day of competition at the Irish nationals, while the Hungarian Energizer Bunny, Katinka Hosszu, won two events.<\/p>\n
Meegan took the top spot in the mile with a 15:38.14, breaking his national record of 15:42.33 that he set last year. Meegan began to distance himself from Brendan Gibbons at the 600-meter mark, with Gibbons picking up second place with a 15:58.60. Conor Turner placed third with a 16:00.80.<\/p>\n
Hosszu's wins today came in the 200 free and 200 fly. After posting a lifetime best 1:57.59 in prelims, she cruised to the win with a 1:59.57, outpacing Sycerika McMahon's 2:01.96 and Bethany Carson's 2:03.61. In the 200 fly, Hosszu got the better of McMahon again, with the Hungarian posting a 2:12.24. Hosszu has been faster this season, with a 2:10.24 to her credit from the Arena Grand Prix two weeks ago in Mesa. McMahon placed second with a 2:16.52, while Sarah Kelly was third with a 2:19.36. <\/p>\n
Hosszu also added a quick 1:00.24 in the 100 backstroke semifinals before her 200 free\/200 fly double, setting herself up to potentially become the seventh person to dip under the 1:00 barrier this year. Her time right now puts her in a tie with Anastasia Zueva for seventh in the world rankings. More impressively, the time breaks the Hungarian national record of 1:00.31, set by Olympic legend Krisztina Egerszegi at the 1991 European championships.<\/p>\n
In other finals action, Reem Kasem took the women's 1500 freestyle with a 17:07.67, well ahead of Matra Ruiz Dominguez (17:33.80) and Lisa Comerford (17:54.21). Sean Leahy used a strong final 50 meters to pull ahead for the win in the men's 200 free with a 1:51.91, with Seamus Stacey settling for second with a 1:52.76, and Great Britain's Matthew Parks right behind for third with a 1:52.84.<\/p>\n
Brendan Hyland chased his national record of 1:59.92 in the men's 200 butterfly, falling short with a winning time of 2:00.33. Egypt's Ahmed Akram Abbas placed second with a 2:01.73 and David O'Sullivan was third with a 2:03.73.<\/p>\n
Barry Murphy put up a 27.70 in the men's 50 breaststroke semifinals then followed it up with a 27.53 in finals, placing himself seventh in the global rankings. He's not too far off his national record of 27.26 from the 2009 world championships. Euan Inglis qualified second for finals with a 28.94, while Ihab El far was third with a 29.12.<\/p>\n
Fiona Doyle captured the women's 50 breast final with a 31.89, while Egypt's Mai Atef was second with a 33.01 and Niamh Kilgallon was third with a 33.85.<\/p>\n
In the men's 100 backstroke semifinals, Brian O'Sullivan topped the qualifiers with a 57.90, ahead of Benjamin Doyle (1:00.03) and Mark Keaveney (1:00.09).<\/p>\n
The Ards team of Curtis Coulter, Joel Kelly, James Brown and Conor Munn set an Irish junior record in winning the men's 400 free relay with a 3:31.28. UCD was second with a 3:37.90 and Aer Lingus took third with a 3:38.24. UCD captured the win in the women's 400 free relay with a 3:59.38, with Kilkenny second in 4:05.27 and Lisburn third with a 4:05.63.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DUBLIN, Ireland, April 25. ANDREW Meegan's national record in the 1500 freestyle highlighted the first day of competition at the Irish nationals, while the Hungarian Energizer Bunny, Katinka Hosszu, won<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-world","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n