The Irish Open Swimming Championships began at the Aurora Complex in Bangor this morning with Grace Davison breaking the Irish senior women’s 100 metres freestyle record.
Davison, a Paris Olympian, swam the fastest qualifying time of 54.45 seconds in her heat which smashed her previous Irish record of 54.80, set when she won bronze at the European Junior Championships in Slovakia last year. It also broke Danielle Hill’s 2022 championship record of 54.87.
She will swim in this evening’s semi-finals of the 100m freestyle and has also now qualified for August’s senior European Aquatics meeting in Paris.
Evan Bailey was the fastest men’s 100 freestyle qualifier in 49.52.
Bailey swam a personal best time of 48.98, knocking 0.17 of a second off his previous best of 49.15 from the 2025 Irish Open.
Lisburn City’s Matthew Hamilton was the only other swimmer under the 50-second mark in the heats with 49.71, an Under-20 qualification time for the European event later in the year.
Jack Cassin and Olympic finalist Ellen Walshe led the qualifiers in the men’s and women’s 200m butterfly heats.
Daniel and Nathan Wiffen will kick off the first finals session of the week in the 1500m freestyle, followed by the female 800m final, male and female 100m freestyle finals and male and female 200m butterfly finals.
They begin from 5.30pm.