Mona McSharry: Irish swimmer fifth in European Championships 100m breaststroke final

Irish swimmer Mona McSharry finished fifth in the European Championships 100m breaststroke final in Rome.

McSharry, who entered the final as third seed, recorded a time of 1:07.14.

The Olympic finalist was fourth at the turn and battled for a place on the podium but was squeezed out by 0.24 of a second.

McSharry's time was 0.70 of a second slower than her semi-final performance, which would have been enough to earn her a bronze medal.

"I put high expectations on myself and that's not really where I wanted to be tonight, it would have been nice to go another 1:06 but that's the way the cards fall sometimes, and I did all I could," McSharry told RTE Sport after the final.

In the 50m backstroke semi-final, Larne swimmer Danielle Hill, 22, clocked 28.54, the exact same time as in her morning heat, and moved up a ranking place to 14th overall.

The Tokyo Olympian is back in the pool for the 50m freestyle and 100m backstroke heats on Monday.

In the 200m breaststroke semi-Final Darragh Greene finished in 13th place overall in 2:12.73. Greene will be in action again on Monday in the 50m breaststroke heats.

On Sunday, McSharry will be joined by Ellie McCartney and 100m breaststroke semi-finalist Niamh Coyne in the 200m breaststroke.

Finn McGeever makes his first appearance of the Championships in the 200m freestyle with Robbie Powell. Shane Ryan competes in the 50m backstroke while Grace Hodgins will swim the 1500m freestyle.

On Saturday morning, Ards swimmer Victoria Catterson missed out on a place in the 200m semi-finals after clocking 2:02.56 in the 200m freestyle.

Catterson smashed Michelle de Bruin's 25-year-old Irish record in the event by producing a time of 1:59.86 on the way to reaching the Commonwealth Games final but she was some way down on the that performance in the Italian capital.