Danielle Hill wins gold at European Aquatics Championship
Danielle Hill has picked up gold at the European Aquatics Championships in Belgrade for the 50m backstroke. The 24-year-old from Newtownabbey, north of Belfast, is Ireland's first European long course champion since Michelle Smith in 1997.
It is the first international win of her career.
It was an incredible swim from Ireland's fastest ever female swimmer. She won gold by putting up a time of 27.73, pipping Theodora Drakou of Greece by just 0.14 seconds. Poland's Adela Piskorska took the bronze.
Hill was fastest out of the blocks and put in a strong final 25m to edge past Drakou.
After she set the fastest time in qualifying, Hill's time in the final was narrowly outside her own Irish record of 27.64.
Following her performance in Belgrade, Hill said: “That was goosebumps right there, I think it will take a while to sink but with five weeks out from Paris it is a really nice confidence boost for me. It was about ironing out anything that needed to be finalised ahead of Paris, it’s pretty nice.”
"I’ve a full team at home who I know are a little bit late going into the session because they were all sitting watching me. Everything that Team Larne has created these past years hasn’t been one or two years, it’s been 12 years of hard work to get to this point. Peter (Larne head coach) can’t be here but it’s all down to his hard work, he is the man behind all this."
"The nerves are still there, I don’t really believe what I’ve done but I’ve a 100m Backstroke tomorrow, so unfortunately, I’ve got to pack this and see what we can do tomorrow morning."
The European Championships is Hill's final event before the Paris Olympics in July, her second Games after competing in Tokyo three years ago.
After that games, she suffered two years of poor results in the pool, opening up to the Irish Examiner earlier this month about thoughts of giving up swimming altogether.
Of her disappointing World Championships in 2023, she said: “There was so much pressure from myself to perform that I was just struggling in myself. I felt like there was nobody there I could talk to. I had no outlet. On top of that then I performed absolutely horrendously, to the point where I almost embarrassed myself.
“After two years of really bad performances, mentally I wasn't in the right position. I was ready to walk away from the sport.”
Hill revealed that sessions with Olympian turned performance psychologist Jessie Barr changed her outlook.
“Jessie was an athlete, an ex-Olympian, she knew where I was coming from the whole time. To sit and have someone understand you is incredible because you think you are making all this stuff up in your head. But I realised this is all very real and I am not the only person feeling this way in sport.”
