Ellen Walshe will compete in the finals of the 200m Butterfly and 400m Individual Medley on the last night of racing at the European Aquatics Championships (25m) in Lublin, Poland, as she qualified through the heats on the 400m Individual Medley on Sunday morning.

Walshe, who won 200m Individual Medley silver on Saturday night, has had a hectic few days of racing with the 200m IM final and 200m Butterfly semi-final on Saturday night, straight into the 200m Butterfly final and 400m Individual Medley heats and final on Sunday.

The Templeogue swimmer cruised through this morning’s heat of the 400m Individual Medley in 4:34.60 placing second and progresses to tonight’s final in third. There were three Spanish athletes ahead of Walshe but a two per nation in semi-finals/finals rule excluded the third fastest of the trio. Alba Azquez Ruiz is the top seed in 4:32.56.

Walshe owns a best time in the event of 4:22.97 from the World Aquatics World Cup in October.

The 24-year-old spoke after the race ‘I just tried to control it a little bit, obviously a 400 IM is never easy, I just wanted to get myself back into a comfortable middle lane for tonight. I knew I had the 400 since I came into the meet, so I knew I was going to have to be ready on day six in the morning to perform, I think I did a decent job this morning to get myself in a decent place for tonight.’

Walshe’s 200 Butterfly Final will take place at 18.50 (IRL) followed by the 400m Individual Medley Final at 19.34 (IRL).

Ireland’s Men’s 4x50m Medley Relay closed out the final heats session in Poland with John Shortt leading out to break the Irish Junior 50m Backstroke Record.

The 200m Backstroke gold medallist was close in the heats earlier in the week touching in 23.88, just outside Conor Ferguson’s 2019 record of 23.84, but this morning, the Galway man lead out in 23.78 for his twelfth Irish Record of the week, he had already amassed an incredible 6 Irish Senior Records and 5 Irish Junior Records from the 100m Backstroke, 200m Backstroke and Mixed 4x50m Medley Relay.

The quartet of Shortt, Jack Cassin (Butterfly), Eoin Corby (Breaststroke) and 200m Freestyle bronze medallist Evan Bailey (Freestyle) combined for a time of 1:35.03.

Shortt said after the race ‘I think it’s very, very positive. For me I think the 200 and 100 were two standouts, and probably the 50 wasn’t probably what I wanted. So, this morning was just a little bit better and obviously really nice standing with the boys the last day. So, yeah, now we head into Irish short course and build on what we did this week.’

 

Cassin added ‘I think it means so much for all of us. We’re not only an Irish relay, but we all train together all the time, we see how hard all of us work, so it’s so much fun.’

Corby said, ‘There’s no better way to top it off than swimming with these lads, we had a great swim and hopefully you can build a bit in the future.’

Bailed added ‘It was good fun to get in with all the lads, it was the same relay as worlds, it’s not our specialty the 4×50, but we got in and give it a good race. We can bring these relays on a whole lot in the next few years. So, it’s a great start to it could be possible in the future.’

At the US Open (50m) in Austin, Texas overnight, Mona McSharry closed out her first long course meet of the 2025/26 season with a third-place finish in the 200m Breaststroke. McSharry, who won 50m Breaststroke gold and 100m Breaststroke silver already, touched in 2:24.91 behind the USA’s Kate Douglass (2:20.86) and Alex Walsh (2:24.88).