Ferguson and Wiffen miss out on Olympic Games spots

Larne swimmers Conor Ferguson and Nathan Wiffen have both missed out on securing individual Olympic Games spots at the Irish trials in Dublin.

Ferguson’s time in the 100m backstroke was 0.25 seconds outside the Paris qualifying mark.

After clocking a personal best of 53.87 seconds in his opening heat on Wednesday which was followed by a 54.12 semi-final swim, Thursday's final was Ferguson's last chance to book Paris qualification in his specialist individual event.

Ferguson, was on target after reaching halfway in 25.9 seconds, and could still secure a place in the medley relay squad for the Games.

In the 800m freestyle, Wiffen was paced by his twin brother and double world champion Daniel in the early stages but with 200m remaining he had to take over the lead as the Olympic qualifying time of 7:51.65 began to slip away.

He gave his all in the closing stages and had the consolation of a personal best of 7:54.69.

The two brothers will swim together again in the heats of the 1500m on Saturday morning which presents Nathan with a second opportunity to join his brother in Paris this summer.

Ferguson has been chasing his Olympic dream for eight years.

As a 16-year-old he missed out on Rio by 0.05 of a second.

He then missed out on qualification for the Tokyo Games by 0.47 seconds before being 0.13 shy on this occasion.

Ferguson's Larne club-mate Danielle Hill secured Olympic qualification in the women's 100m backstroke on Wednesday.

Fannon becomes fifth Irish swimmer to achieve Olympic qualification

Ireland did qualify a fifth swimmer for the Paris Olympics.

Tom Fannon bettered his Irish senior record in the 50m freestyle and his time of 21.94 was 0.02 inside the Olympic qualification standard.

The 26 year-old was born in Birmingham and trained for most of his career alongside world champion Ben Proud in Plymouth.

He represented Great Britain at the 2016 European Aquatics Championships and finished eighth for England in the 2018 Commonwealth Games at the Gold Coast before transferring to Ireland in 2021.

Fannon’s grandfather is from Galway.

He joins Daniel Wiffen, Ellen Walshe, Mona McSharry and Danielle Hill with the individual qualification times.

Finn McGeever and Darragh Greene were within half a second of joining the quintet in the 100m butterfly and breaststroke respectively and will have a final opportunity on Friday.

Hill saw off the challenge of Ards swimmer Grace Davison and Belfast’s Victoria Catterson in the semi-finals of the 100m freestyle.

Davison lowered her Irish Junior Record twice in the same day recording 55.44.

The trio will race each other again in Friday’s final.