After a thrilling end to finals session last night with a new Ulster & Irish Senior Record in the Women’s 4x100m Freestyle relay, Emily Hughes and Victoria Catterson got Team NI kickstarted this morning at Tollcross. Both racing in the final heat of 200m Freestyle with Olympic Champion Mollie O’Callaghan (AUS), the girls delivered a solid start to the morning session with Victoria touching the wall in a time of 2:02.73, and Hughes in 2:03.35, just 0.07 outside her lifetime best.
Next into the water, the women’s backstroke trio of Lottie Cullen, Grace Davison and Danielle Hill made a splash during the heats. Davison made her way into the water in lane 3 beside Kylie Masse of Canada, where she swam a 1:01.21 to finish 2nd in her heat. Cullen & Hill both shared spots in the following heat, swimming beside Katie Shanahan (SCO) and Hannah Fredericks (AUS). In a strong penultimate heat, Hill finished in a time of 1:01.28 with Cullen closely behind touching in 1:01.47.
Matthew Hamilton made his Commonwealth Games debut for Team Northern Ireland this morning in the men’s 100m Butterfly. In heat 3, lane 5, Hamilton smashed his lifetime best to qualify 10th into tonight’s semi-final in a time of 52.75. Whilst doing so, Matthew also achieved a new Ulster Senior Record & Irish Senior Record.
Attention turned to the Women’s 100m Breaststroke where Ellie McCartney took to the blocks. Racing beside Scotland’s Angharad Evans, McCartney put in a good morning swim to touch the wall in a time of 1:08.35, just outside of her best time of 1:06.97 set at the Irish Open Championships back in April 2025. Ellie will be back for the semi-finals tonight after finishing 9th overall from this morning.
Penultimate heats event of the morning saw Daniel Wiffen and Jack McMillan race in the Men’s 400m Freestyle. Daniel swam a solid heat swim this morning, swimming alongside Elijah Winnington (AUS) for the first 200 metres. Wiffen then lifted the pace to take the lead, and was narrowly touched out by Goedemans (AUS), finishing in a time of 3:47.01. McMillan followed shortly after in the next heat, where he swam a very controlled 400m race. Pacing the first 200m very well, he also lifted after the halfway mark to bring a bit of pace to the race. He finished 4th in the heat behind Short (AUS), Guy (ENG) and Melbourne-Smith (WAL). Wiffen and McMillan will both swim tonight in the final going in 3rd and 7th respectively.
To close out the morning heats, Bethany Firth opened her 2026 Games campaign in the S14 200m Freestyle heats. In what was a dominating first swim, Firth won her heat in a time of 2:09.96.
We return tonight to watch all of our morning heats swimmers race their semi-finals & finals at Tollcross International Swimming Centre in session 4 of the swimming schedule.