In the context of County Wexford teenager Gráinne Murphy’s rise and rise, Irish swimming happily has its head held high this week.
Having won European 1500m silver in Budapest during the summer, on Friday the New Ross native lowered her own Irish record by a staggering 16 seconds in taking bronze in the 800m freestyle at the European Short Course Championships in Eindhoven, before taking third in the 400 the following evening.
Swimming since the age of two and with a prodigious pedigree – three golds and a bronze at last year’s European Juniors in Prague grabbed the wider public’s attention; as one message boarder posted, she hasn’t “magically grown a pair of shoulders like a stall-fed bullock before winning all before her” – all going well Gráinne should be a live medal hope when it comes to London 2012.
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