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New Ross swimmer Evan Bailey advances to semi-finals in Singapore

New Ross swimmer Evan Bailey advances to semi-finals in Singapore

He had the swim of his life, with the National Centre Limerick swimmer matching Jack McMillan's time from the Tokyo Games in 1:46.66. It was Bailey's first time under 1:47, having come into the meet with a best time of 1:47.04 from the Irish Open in April.
The New Ross man finished seventh in his heat and progresses 15th overall to this afternoon's semi-final.
Speaking after the race Bailey said: 'I'm absolutely delighted. I've had a lot of ups and downs this season and yeah, my training's been going really well, and I've just been waiting for that one swim to happen, I'm absolutely delighted with it, and it was there.
'I can't thank the people around me or my team-mates anymore, they've done probably more of the work than I have to help get me here, but yeah, the training group right now we have is unbelievable and just all the boys push each other.
'Even at Under23s just seeing like Eoin (Corby) and Jack (Cassin) at the finals there doing so well and then John Shortt at European Juniors and I just wanted to say oh, here it's my turn to show what I can do now. I'm absolutely over the moon with that.'
Bailey takes to the blocks for the 200m freestyle semi-final at 1.08 p.m. Irish time today.
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