Great London Swim success for Chris

SHANNON swimmer Chris Bryan finished ninth in the Great London Swim last weekend, ahead of former Olympic and world medallists.
The 20-year-old was competing in the event, held in the Thames, which attracted some 5,000 swimmers.
Chris completed the course ahead of Britain’s David Davies, who won Olympic bronze in the 1,500m and was also a silver medallist in the open water 10km at the Beijing Games.
Bryan, a member of Ennis Swimming Club, was right in the mix all the way. He held third place for a while before his group took the less favourable line back to the finish. He beat David Davies from Britain, who won an Olympic bronze in the 1,500m and silver in the open water 10km at the last Olympics. He also beat Brendan Cappell (Australia), world 25km open water champion, David Carry and Ross Davenport, who are Commonwealth Games gold and silver medallists for Britain.
The race was won by Thomas Lurz, a bronze medallist in Beijing and winner of multiple world championships.
Chris said he is pleased with his performance in London and finishing ahead of numerous successful swimmers.
He is studying sports science at the University of Limerick, where his training is based. Preparations for the sport are quite demanding he said.
“We would be ready to train at 5.10am and we start with 40 minutes of dry land work. We do work in the pool from 6am to 8.30am and then we do 30 minutes of recovery work. That goes on six days a week.
“At 2.30pm, we do another 30 minutes of dry land work and we swim from 3pm to 5.30pm. We do the afternoon sessions four evenings a week.”
He holds a number of Munster records in the pool and got into open water swimming after taking part in surf-lifeguarding competitions.
Open water swimming was an Olympic event for the first time in 2008 and Chris hopes to take part in the London games. Next Wednesday, he will set out for Turkey, where he is taking part in a European Cup event.
“There are three legs in it a year. I did one in Italy about a month ago, all the top Europeans are there. In events in Ireland, I’d often have been a good bit ahead but in that event you had to swim in the pack, it was a bit like cycling. I kept trying to swim out and around but you couldn’t do it. I learned a lot from it.”
Bryan has also qualified for the Senior European Championships, following his victory in the national 10km, an event in which he was some 23 minutes ahead of second place, as well as for the European senior swimming championships in the 5km and 10km open water events. He will represent Ireland this year in Budapest in August 4.