Despite winning his heat in the 200 metres butterfly and setting a new Irish record, Colin Lowth was as much as 10 places away from a B final place in the World Swimming Championships in Perth yesterday.

Cormorant teenager Lowth clocked 2.03.25 seconds to trim the Irish record of 2.03.90 by over half a second. It was a brave effort by the Irish youngster who recovered strongly from fourth place at the 100 metres mark.

National coach Ger Doyle said: "Colin can feel pleased with that performance. He has had injury problems in training over the past few months and for him to be able to come up and produce an Irish record at this level has got to be good."

Lowth, who finished 26th out of an entry of 49, will be hoping to do better in his last remaining event, the 100 metres butterfly tomorrow.

Nick O'Hare and Hugh O'Connor were both outside their best times in the 100 metres freestyle (53.20 and 54.00 respectively), but both swimmers were using the event for warm-up purposes. O'Connor goes in the 100 metres backstroke today and in the 200 backstroke on Sunday. O'Hare is aiming for his big effort at 50 metres freestyle on Saturday. In yesterday 100 metres, O'Hare finished 51st out of 83 entries while O'Connor was four places worse off.

Adrian O'Connor also goes in today's 100 backstroke.