Nocher narrowly misses final spot

Nocher set two Irish short course records in Canada last month

Belfast woman Melanie Nocher narrowly failed to reach the final of the women's 200 metres Backstroke at the European Championships in Eindhoven.

Nocher set a personal best time of 2:15.40 in Tuesday evening's semi-finals but was ninth fastest of the 16 swimmers with eight qualifying.

The Olympics hopeful had recorded 2:17.48 in her heat on Tuesday morning.

Another Irish swimmer, Aisling Cooney, also failed to qualify, setting the 11th fastest time in 2:16.21.

Bangor woman Clare Dawson failed to progress from the 50m butterfly heats.

Her time of 29.37 seconds left her 40th out of 42 competitors - 1.93 outside a semi-final spot.

Dawson had qualified for the championships by recording a time of 28.86.

Grainne Murphy missed out on a final place in the women's 400m individual medley after recording a time of 5:03.17 which left her 19th fastest.

Murphy was almost six seconds outside her personal best.

Nocher, Dawson, Murphy joined Aisling Cooney in the 4x100m freestyle relay where Ireland finished 11th (4:00.11) and missed a place in the final.

The Irish swimmers will also be in action in a number of other events in Holland while freestyle sprinter Barry Murphy will compete in his specialist events over the weekend.

Julie Douglas has opted to compete in next week's Australian trials instead of the Europeans while Andrew Bree, who has already secured qualification for this year's Olympics, is also giving the Eindhoven event a miss.

Nocher broke one of Michelle De Bruin's Irish short course records in February and she is being touted as a strong candidate to join Bree on the plane to Beijing.