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Ellen Walshe and Danielle Hill seal semi-final spots at World Aquatic Championships

Ellen Walshe and Danielle Hill seal semi-final spots at World Aquatic Championships

RTÉ News​2 days ago
and Danielle Hill have booked their places in the semi-finals of the women's 200m butterfly and 50m backstroke respectively at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, while Olympic champion Daniel Wiffen will be in men's 800m freestyle final action this afternoon.
Walshe, who was a finalist in the the 200m individual event earlier this week, was taking part in the butterfly heats over the same distance on Wednesday, having brought it back into her repertoire for the first time in five years earlier in 2025.
But the Templeogue swimmer showed no rust in the discipline as she finished second in her heat in a time of 2:09.15 behind USA's Regan Smith (2:08.17) and qualified seventh fastest overall for a place in the semi-finals.
Walshe's time was the third fastest of her career and was a little way outside of the 2:08.42 national record she holds in the 200m butterfly which she set in March.
The 23-year-old will return to the pool at 1.22pm Irish time for the second semi-final heat and was cautiously optimistic that she could contend for a place in the final.
"I'm not going to jump straight to that, but I think to go out there tonight and do what I did this morning, like control the first 100 to an extent and then just get after the second 100 as strong as I can and just see where it places me tonight," she said, adding, "It should be a good race, it's quite stacked out there."
Fellow Olympian Hill matched her season's best 27.84 on the way to winning her heat in the 50m backstroke, just 0.20 outside of her national record, and qualified 10th overall.
"I'm buzzing. I know I might not sound or look it, but I think after Monday (100m backstroke heats) I was a little bit disappointed in myself," she said.
"But, I took that swim forward and I looked at it and the shoulder wasn't sore and so all I had to take was confidence from the event, and bring it into this morning, and again, worked with the team throughout the last 24 hours to make sure that I was behind that block again and stood up this time and done the right job."
The Larne swimmer will be in semi final action at 12.38pm Irish time, shortly after Paris 2024 gold medalist Wiffen will compete in his 800m freestyle final at 12.02pm.
Wiffen, who is recovering from appendicitis, clocked seven minutes 46.36 seconds to finish fifth in his heat on Tuesday, said he was feeling "really weak at the moment".
Evan Bailey missed out on a place in the 100m Freestyle semi-finals but came close to his personal best in finishing in a time of 49.52 on the way to a second place finish in his heat.
It is the Limerick swimmer's final individual event of the championships.
"It was a decent swim, it wasn't anything special, it was 0.4 off my PB, but yeah, just to get in, swim, get that experience here, get it under the belt, so next time I come back, I'll know exactly what to do," he said.
"Not the best of my life, but the focus hasn't really been sprint and the 100 free recently. The last few months I've been up at altitude and working more on my endurance and just build my aerobic capacity to build that 200 (freestyle), so I'm not overly disappointed with that time for the 100 as it wasn't really the main focus, but hopefully now I'm going to try building the speed in the next coming months and I'll get that 100 better along with the 200, so I'll have multiple events."
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