Tom Fannon had another impressive showing in the semi-final of the 50m Freestyle on Thursday at La Defense firing off a second Irish Record to place fourth in his semi-final and tenth overall.
The 26-year-old, who broke the Irish Record of 21.82 in 21.79 in this morning’s heats, lowered that time once again to 21.74, just missing out on the Final by one tenth of a second.
Commenting on the race Fannon said ‘It’s a really stacked heat, a really stacked event, the 50m Free is always fast and obviously to go back-to-back PBs, morning and evening is great. I would have liked to have gone a bit faster, I think. I think the morning swim in terms of the mistakes gave me more confidence than that 21.74 there and I think personally I could have gone .1 faster there, the fact that I corrected some of the mistakes from the morning. But in hindsight and you can’t really work off that, at the end of the day it is really bittersweet, I have to be happy with the fact that, first Games, semi-final, just off a final, two Irish records, two PBs back-to-back, I mean I’d be silly to say I’m disappointed. It locks down to what I want to do in the next four years. I mean from 21.7, hopefully you know in four years’ time, trying to come away with a medal would be the major goal and I think personally I can do that if I perform well in the first 15m, in that race I was behind the first 15m, so if I can just continue to tip away at that then you know a medal is on the table.’
The National Centre Dubin swimmer was all smiles after both races today saying ’ I think that’s the main thing, I didn’t want to come away from this Games and go ‘oh I didn’t embrace the crowd, I didn’t embrace the feeling’ I’m not going to get a feeling like that for another four years and you know I think that helped, I think that really helped the nerves as well, because sometimes if you get in your own head and too fixated on locking in, sometimes I think that actually does the opposite for performance. But I really enjoyed that, had a nice little chat with Steve (Beckerleg, coach) afterwards and you know bittersweet yes but there you are.’
With the 50m Freestyle Fannon’s sole event of the Games, he commented on his experience ‘It’s been good, it’s hard to race one event especially when it’s 21 seconds, day six of the meet, it’s not easy and it’s about manging emotions throughout the week, just being in control of that, not getting too excited, knowing when to switch off, when to switch on, and I think I did really well, I think I managed that perfectly, in my opinion. But yeah, I would have liked to have done a Final but we learn from it, we move on and we reflect and also celebrate.’
With one withdrawal confirmed, Fannon is now first reserve for Friday’s Final.
400m Individual Medley Finalist at these Games Ellen Walshe returns to the pool on Friday for the heats of the 200m Individual Medley. Walshe is the Irish record holder in the event in 2:10.92, a time she set in the semi-final of the 2023 World Championships.
Results:
Men 50m Freestyle Tom Fannon H 21.79 (6th) ISR SF 21.74 (10th) ISR
Friday 2nd August Schedule
Women 200m IM Ellen Walshe 11.17 (Heat 5/5)
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