Ellen Walshe finishes in seventh place in 200m individual medley semi-finals

IRELAND’S ELLEN WALSHE has finished in seventh place in the semi-final of the 200m Individual Medley at the Paris Olympic Games.

Walshe, who clocked her third fastest time ever in the heats this morning, swam in lane eight for the butterfly leg and took the first turn at the wall in eighth place heading into the backstroke.

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The breaststroke followed with Walshe still in eighth place in what was a stacked heat. She moved up to seventh in the final leg of the freestyle to finish in 2:11.35 ahead of Shiho Matsumoto from Japan. However, it wasn’t enough to see her through to the final.

“It’s nice to go out and swim a better race but I was probably hopefully hoping for a little bit more tonight,” she told RTÉ Sport. “It probably wasn’t quite there.

“With IM [individual medley], everyone races it so differently. That’s what makes it so exciting. It was always going to be a tough one to get back in and I think I would have needed a PB to get in the top eight tomorrow.

“I had three days off between this and the 400m and to be honest, it probably was enough time to recover. The body’s hurting now but I’m excited to get out there with the girls tomorrow [4x100m medley] and give it one last go.”