This National competition took place over 4 days; 6th to 10th July in University of Limerick. We had ten swimmers who qualified in various events, with some swimming all four days and some swimming on just one day.
HeadCoach Pearse had organised special club t-shirts for this occasion and the swimmers were delighted with them. Even more thrilling were the new club hats with their name on the side. We were pleased to display the names of our kind sponsors this year on the back of the t-shirts.
Our ten athletes were Alice Trainor, Maddie Smith, Katherine Ryan, Aoife McKenna, Sean McConnon, Aoibhín MacCinna, Justas Jarusas, Sean Greenan, Rebekah Gillis and Ben Duffy. These swimmers had been training hard in advance of this competition and were hoping to swim well and do themselves proud.
Without a shadow of a doubt, Sean Greenan had a fantastic time in Limerick. Sean had qualified in no less than 7 events at this meet and Sean went on to make finals in all those events and came home with a total of five national medals. Sean won his first national gold in 100Brs, in a massive pb of -9.07 seconds. He went on then and claimed silver in the 100fly, bronze in the 200IM, silver in the
400free and another bronze in 100bk. Sean managed to swim a pb in all his events and never finished outside of the top 10. An amazing achievement for Sean at his first National meet. Aoibhín MacCinna qualified in seven events also and while she narrowly missed the medals on a couple of occasions with 4 th placing, she did manage to claim a great silver medal in 100bk in a pb time. This was a great reward for Aoibhín, after four days in the pool it was well earned as she swam in three finals and achieved a lot of good pb times during her four days in UL. Maddie Smith competed in two events, 200fr, where she made the final and finished in 4 th place overall in a massive pb of over 8 seconds. Maddie also went on to win the 200Brs race in another big pb time of over 9 seconds to claim her gold medal. Maddie was surely having a great few days shaving massive time off all her swims. Rebekah Gillis swam in five events over two days in IL. Rebekah qualified for the final in the 50Brs
and made it count, swimming to victory getting her gold medal in a pb time, saving her best for the final. Sean McConnon competed in two events, 100brs and 100bk. Sean had two good swims, making
reserve final in the 100Brs. Katherine Ryan competed in two events, gaining two nice pb times of – 3.30 and -5.43 off her previous times. Aoife McKenna competed in the 200bk gaining a pb time of – 1.58 off her previous time in this event. Alice Trainor competed in the 200Bk, knocking nearly 4 seconds off her previous best time. Ben Duffy swam in the 200IM event, knocking nearly 3 seconds off his previous best time. Justas Jarusas had qualified in the 100Bk event and he also swam a pb time in this his first National Competition.
Overall this was a positive meet for our athletes, we came home with 32 pb times, three gold medals, three silver medals and two bronze. We also achieved some Div1 qualifying times.
Thanks to Pearse McGuigan, Headcoach, for all the help and support to our swimmers and to the Larne Juvenile coach, Paul, for stepping in one of the days. Thanks to the team managers on the various days and to Claire for her work on the accreditations etc.
Well done everyone, you have done yourselves and your club proud.
Next Up is – Irish Summer Nationals 2022
This meet will take place from 20th to 24
th July in the National Aquatic Centre. We have four swimmers who have qualified in at least one event at this meet. Darragh Hughes, Adam Lynch, Sean
Greenan and Maddie Smith will be attending and we wish them all the best with their training in advance of this competition.