Advertisement
Ireland's Sycerika McMahon shows off her silver medal. ©INPHO/Andrea Staccioli

Sycerika McMahon on the Olympic radar as she wins European silver

The 17-year-old swimmer was very impressive in securing second place in the 50m Breaststroke final at the Euro Championships.

KATIE TAYLOR MAY just have some competition as Ireland’s main medal hope after Sycerika McMahon captured a Silver medal at the European Championships on Sunday.

The 17-year-old, who made the final as second-fastest qualifier, smashed the Irish 50m Breaststroke record as she finished in 31.27 seconds.

McMahon finished a mere two hundreths of a second behind the winner, Petra Chocova from the Czech Republic, at the championships in Debrecen, Hungary.

The Belfast-trained swimmer shattered the Irish record, for the same discipline, by .22 of a second. Caroline Ruhhau of Germany took bronze with a time of 31.35.

The previous time of 31.49 had been set by McMahon at the World Swimming Championships in 2011.

London bound

The medal win came five days after McMahon, from Portaferry, Co. Down, secured Olympic qualification for the 100m Breaststroke after finishing in fifth position in the final.

Peter Banks, the high performance director at Swim Ireland was delighted with the teenager’s performance. He said:

It’s been a great week for Irish Swimming, two (Olympic) ‘A’ standards earlier in the week and then to top it off Sycerika’s great performance for the Silver medal today, the team have had a great championship overall.

McMahon teamed up later in the day with Bethany Carson, Fiona Doyle and Melanie Nocher, who also qualified for the games this week.

The grouping took part in the 4x100m Medley Relay but finished 12th overall as they recorded a time of 4:13.75.

The week of competition in Hungary has garnered a Silver medal, two Olympic qualifications, four finalists, eight semi-finalists, and three new Irish Senior swimming records.

Varadkar dismisses scathing report on grant for Taylor’s boxing club

Declan Kidney mixes it up for Barbarians game tomorrow

Close
4 Comments
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Brian M
    Favourite Brian M
    Report
    Jul 15th 2024, 7:49 AM

    Led by example again the other night. Ireland’s best player by a distance despite the media obsession with McCabe, who has been poor since the World Cup. Katie could do worse than look to O’Sullivan’s example as to how to lead instead of moaning at refs, giving out to team-mates and constantly giving the ball away with silly flicks and attempts to look good. O’Sullivan does it all without the ego and dramatics, and more power to her. Great role model for young players.

    13
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Der Calnan
    Favourite Der Calnan
    Report
    Jul 15th 2024, 1:46 PM

    @Brian M: Was there talk of her going to Man United?

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Square
    Favourite Square
    Report
    Jul 15th 2024, 4:16 PM

    I will be at it come on girls

    1
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.