Sizzling Sycerika seals bronze in Euros

IRELAND'S Sycerika McMahon followed up her London 2012 experience by taking bronze in the 50m breaststroke at the European short course championships in Chartres, France.

The 17-year-old set three Irish records for the 50m breast on the first day of the championships, clocking 30.34 in the final to finish behind gold medal winner Petra Chocova (30.02) of the Czech Republic and silver medallist Rikke Pederson (30.25) of Denmark.

In the heats, McMahon touched in 30.88 and then lowered that in the semi-finals with 30.56 to qualify third fastest for the final.

McMahon, a member of the Leander club, along with Jane Roberts, Shani Stallard and Clodagh Flood, made the final of the women's 4x50m freestyle relay, in which they finished eighth in 1:46.95. Denmark took gold in 1:38.10.

Swim Ireland's high performance director Peter Banks hailed the performance of McMahon, who was having her first competitive swim since London. He said: "Considering these were her first swims since the Olympics, I think this was a very good performance. After the Olympics and the big high that goes with that, it's not always easy for athletes to get up for the next competition, but Sycerika is very determined to keep improving and you could see that.

Quicker

"Every time she got into the pool she was quicker and that speaks for itself. Overall it was a great first day for the whole team because we had some of the other swimmers doing Irish junior records. We bring some of the junior ones along to sample the atmosphere at this level and you hope that this experience pays off in the future."

The relay team of Brendan Hyland, Cian Duffy, Brendan Gibbons and David O'Sullivan set a new Irish junior record of 1:47.02. Hyland also set a new Irish junior record in the 100m butterfly, clocking 54.73. Cian Duffy clocked a new Irish junior record of 2:04.01 for the 200m individual medley.

Meanwhile, Hannah Miley set a new British record with silver in the 200m individual medley in 2:06.21.