Shane Ryan and Conor Ferguson are through to the 100m Backstroke semi-final on the opening day of competition at the LEN European Swimming Championships in London.

Ryan put in an impressive performance on his international debut for Ireland finishing 2nd in his heat and third overall in a new Irish Senior Record of 54.21. The previous record of 54.41 had belonged to Conor Ferguson from the Irish Open Championships just 2 weeks ago.

Speaking after his race Ryan commented “I’m feeling good, I think I might have been a bit too relaxed, but the goal was to get back and that’s it done. This was just practice for tonight, where I want to get out quicker and come home quicker!”

16-year-old Conor Ferguson, making his senior international debut, swam a morning best time of 55.06, finishing 5th in his heat and progressed to the semi-final in 12th place overall.

“I’m feeling good, a bit more nervous than usual at my first senior meet, so to go that fast in the heat is pretty good.” Ferguson said “It’s all about seeing how much I can improve on tonight, I’ll go back and look at my splits and see from there. The atmosphere here is incredible, the pools great. I’m going to push to get that Olympic time, I always said it would be a bonus and I do believe I’m capable of getting it but the goal from the start of the year has always been to win European Junior’s so if it doesn’t happen it’s not meant to be”.

The 100m Backstroke Semi-Final takes place on Monday night at 6.17pm.

Olympic qualifier Nicholas Quinn was the best of the Irish in the 100m Breaststroke touching 5th in his heat in 1:01.69 while Alex Murphy swam a time of 1:02.15 and Dan Sweeney 1:04.76.

Danielle Hill made her senior international debut in the 200m Backstroke. The 17-year-old placed 2nd in her heat in 2 minutes 21.55 seconds while Brendan Hyland rounded off the morning for Ireland with a personal best in the 50m Butterfly of 24.66 seconds, his main event the 200m Butterfly, coming on Wednesday.