Ireland’s Shane Ryan has won the men’s 50m backstroke bronze medal at the World Short Course Championships in Budapest.
Ryan produced a superb swim to clock 22.56 seconds which left him 0.09 seconds behind winner, Miron Lifintsev, who is competing at the championships at a neutral because of the ban on Russian teams.
US-born Ryan’s time was 0.20 seconds inside his previous Irish record set in 2018 as Australia’s Isaac Cooper took silver by clocking 22.49.
An outstanding evening for Irish swimming then continued as Ellen Walshe qualified third fastest for the women’s 100m butterfly final.
The Dubliner produced her eighth Irish record of the championships as she clocked 55.50 seconds in her semi-final
Walshe reached the semi-finals after setting her seventh Irish record of the championships with a 56.17 swim in the morning heats, which cut 0.50 seconds off her previous mark set last year.
The Dublin swimmer’s best performance of the week so far was finishing fifth in the 200m individual medley final on Tuesday.
She looks to be in medal contention for Saturday evening’s 100m butterfly final although USA’s Gretchen Walsh will be a huge favourite for gold after clocking a world record of 52.87 seconds which was more than two seconds quicker than second fastest qualifier Sweden’s Louise Hansson.