GWANGJU, SOUTH KOREA – Penn State women's swimming alum Ally McHugh placed sixth in the 400-meter individual medley with a time of 4:38.34 at the 2019 FINA World Championships Sunday in the Nambu International Aquatics Center in Gwangju, South Korea.
McHugh, the 2018 U.S. National Champion, was the lone American to reach the finals of the event. The first women's Penn Stater to swim at Worlds since Alyson Ackman swam for Canada in the 4x200m relay in 2015, McHugh becomes the program's first to swim to the finals.
It was the lone event she competed in for the week.
Fellow alum Shane Ryan competed on the men's side for Ireland in multiple events. Ryan concluded the week by helping Ireland to a national record performance of 3:35.11 to place 14th, just .75 seconds shy of automatic qualification for the 2020 Olympics. The group will look to remain in the Top 16 until May 2020. Ryan had bowed out of the 50m backstroke, which is not an Olympic event, to give his best for the relay effort and try to earn an automatic Olympic qualification time himself for the 100m backstroke. His opening back split in the relay was 54.39 seconds, coming up just shy of the 53.85 standard. Ryan had placed 11th in the 50m back prelims Saturday with a season-best time of 25.10.
Earlier in the week, Ryan placed 20th in the 100m backstroke with a time 54.24.
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