Paddy Johnston Becomes Ireland’s First New 200 Fly Champion In 10 Years

2022 IRISH OPEN SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Tuesday, April 19th – Saturday, April 23rd
• Sport Ireland National Aquatic Centre, Dublin, Ireland
• LCM (50m)
• Final Qualifying Opportunity for World Championships/European Championships/Commonwealth Games
• Swim Ireland World Championships Selection Criteria
• Entries
• SwimSwam Preview
• Results – Meet Mobile – Irish Open Championships 2022

Day 1 Highlights

Day one of the 2022 Irish Open Swimming Championships already re-wrote some history with the men’s 200m fly seeing its first new champion in 10 years. Since 2013, Olympian Brendan Hyland has dominated the event, however, tonight it was Paddy Johnston‘s turn.

With Hyland training in Australia and not competing at this meet, Johnston capitalized on his opportunity to shine. He touched in a final time of 2:00.00 to beat the field by over a second en route to winning his first national title. As runner-up, 18-year-old Liam Custer captured silver in 2:01.09 to dip under the consideration time for the European Junior Championships.

21-year-old Johnston carried his momentum nearly immediately into his 2nd event of the men’s 50m back. The Ards swimmer got to the wall in a mark of 26.06 to make it a double on the night.

Also making waves was national record holder Danielle Hill. Hill took on the women’s 50m free, establishing a new meet record of 25.30 en route to gold.

In fact, her time here tonight in Dublin fell just shy of her 25.19 Irish standard, giving us a good sign of things to come from her over the course of the meet.

There were no new qualifiers for the Irish team to the World Championships on day 1 of the meet. Ireland is using a multi-meet qualifying system this year.