Good Day for Irish Swim Team.

Nicholas Quinn who swam a personal best in the heats of the 100m Breaststroke and equaled it again in the semi finals.
Nicholas Quinn who swam a personal best in the heats of the 100m Breaststroke and equaled it again in the semi finals.

The 28th World University Games competition started officially today with Team Ireland’s student archers, footballers and swimmers all in competition.

It was a good day in the pool for the Irish swimmers with both Shauna O’Brien (UCD) and Nicholas Quinn (Edinburgh) qualifying from their morning heats to make the semi-finals of the 50m Butterfly and the 100m Breaststroke respectively. Although both students did not progress from their respective semis the students will be happy with their performances with Nicholas setting a personal best in his morning swim and which he subsequently matched in his evening swim.

UCD swimmers Alexander Murphy and Shani Stallard swam the 100m Breaststroke and the 400m IM heats respectively but did not progress to their semi finals.

The Archery qualification rounds were also held today with Darren Wallace (NUIG) shooting a 614 in the recurve shot while John Smith (DIT) shot a 666 in the compound shot. John now shots in tomorrow’s compound elimination round with Darren’s recurve elimination round scheduled for Monday morning local time

Finally it was a difficult afternoon for the women’s footballers who lost 5-1 to a very technical and efficient Czech Republic side. For the second game running the Irish goal was scored by IT Carlow’s Claire O’Riordan. The Irish girls now play South Korea in a must win game on Monday morning (8.30am Irish time).

Day 2

A summary of the competition schedule for Day 2 is as follows (all Irish times):

  • Fiona Doyle (Calgary), Grainne Murphy (UL), Jordan Sloan (UU) and Sycerika McMahon (Texas A & M) all swim their first event of the competition (11pm Saturday
  • John Smith (DIT) shoots in the Archery Compound Elimination (1am Sunday)
  • The Men’s Football play China in their second game of Group D (8.30am Sunday).