Melanie Nocher is through to the semi-finals of the women's 100 backstroke at the European Short Course Swimming Championships in Eindhoven, but there was disappointment for Aisling Cooney, who was placed 17th overall and missed the top 16 by three hundredths of a second.

It will be particularly upsetting for Cooney as the ESB swimmer was swimming in her top event, but missing her personal best, meant she failed to make the cut.

Nocher, however, had no such problems. She set a new personal record of 1 min 00.17 seconds which placed her 11th overall and a place in the semis.

The 21 year-old, who is swimming out of Loughborough University in England, is playing down her chances of making the final, but an evening swim will fine tune her backstroke sprinting ahead of the 200 backstroke and the 400 freestyle, an event in which she cut five seconds off the Irish record just two weeks' ago.

Grainne Murphy swimming in the 200 Individual Medley heats , broke Michelle De Bruin's 15 year old Irish record in a time of 2 mins 12.86 seconds. It was a good morning swim in what is not one of her top events as the focus for the Wexford teenager is the 400 IM and the 800 freestyle, two of seven events she is entered in this week.

Coming into this meet Murphy has no short course times registered this season and has also just returned from high altitude training in Fonteneau in France, so it's difficult at this stage to gauge her form.

This morning's swim will tell Murphy and her coach a lot about her race condition for the rest of the week.

Ireland have just three swimmers at this meet, having had ten at last year's championships in Istanbul due to a combination of injury, illness and a reluctance of some to return from their camps in the USA.

Nocher's 100 backstroke semi final is off the blocks at 4.30 Irish time this evening with the first finals session itself under way at 4pm.