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National Age Group Championship Finals in U.L. Page last updated: Jul 16, 2006 - 10:21:00 PM |
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The National Age Group Championship Finals were held in U.L. from Friday to Sunday over last weekend in glorious sunshine and Ennis Swimming & Lifesaving Club had 14 swimmers competing for the top honours at this Division 1 Youth Championship, the ultimate event of the year for most of them. There were a total of 63 swimming clubs taking part from all over the country including eight clubs from England and Wales. There was a good deal of success all round for the Ennis swimmers. In the individual events they won two of the coveted gold medals, one silver and one bronze both of which are just as desirable and in short supply. They also won one silver in a team relay event. In the first day of competition Ennis won their first National medal wit Christopher Bryan taking the bronze in the 16 year old boys 400m freestyle. Chris swam a significant personal best time of 4.22.39. He knocked nearly 12 seconds off his previous best time. He had more than two seconds to spare over Stacey from the Coolmine club in Dublin who finished in fourth. Fionan Cronin and James Lynch both also swam superbly to finish in the top eight in the country. Fionan lowered his pb by over five seconds to finish 6th in 4.41.38 and James took three seconds off his pb when placed seventh in a time of 4.42.48. Tom Whyatt had a good two second pb. Keith O Farrell, David Mannion and Brian Coyne all posted good long course times in the 400m freestyle. Keith O Farrell and Christopher Bryan swam well in the 200m backstroke in the boys 16 year olds. Keith was a bit outside his pb on this occasion and was unlucky to finish in fourth place in 2.18.39. Chris improved his pb to 2.21.03 and was placed fifth overall. They will both be a little dissappointed with their performances both believing they should have been closer to the medals. Ciara Donnelly swam strongly in the heats of the 100m breaststroke for 16 year old girls, going into the final in fifth place. She put in a great effort in the final but unfortunately was just pipped for the bronze right at the finish. Her time was 1.20.92. Bernard O Brien also qualified in third place for the final of the boys 17 year olds 100m breaststroke. He failed only marginally also to pick up a bronze in a time of 1.15.40. Eoin O Sullivan who was undoubtedly one of the favourites for the title in the boys 18 year olds 100m breaststroke broke down in his heat with the reoccurrence of a recent shoulder injury which he thought had healed. Bernard Cahill was 12th in the 11 – 12 year old boys 200m. I.M. Nicolas Welaratne was 9th in the 13 year olds and Chris Bryan was 6th overall in the 16 year olds. Bernard Cahill had a provisional improvement of approx. 8 secs. in his 400m freestyle to finish 8th overall. Day two brought the first National age group title to the Ennis club when Nicolas Welaratne raised more than a few eyebrows from rival clubs with his stunning gold medal performance in the 13 year old boys 100m backstroke event. Before this year they could have predicted the possible first three in this event final. Nicholas however rewrote the script on the day. Before this year he had not even swam division 2 competition and in fact was only promoted to grade A galas earlier in the season. He was a virtual unknown to most of his fellow swimmers with the exception of some of the Munster clubs. The Ulster champion J. Sloan was clear favourite for the title going into the event nearly two seconds better than his nearest rival and almost 4 seconds faster than Nicolas’converted short course time. In the preliminary heat Nicolas took over 1.70 secs. from his best time and in the final lowered it again by another 1.80 secs. to snatch the gold medal in the last 5 meters. He had to come from behind and for a while it looked like his immense effort over the last fifty meters would fail. But he was never going to give up and fought doggedly right to the finish untill he finally broke Sloan’s resolve inside the final 5 meters to get there by 0.36 secs. and in a new pb of 1.10.58. There was a great team performance by the Ennis boys in the 15-16 year old 200m freestyle relay when they beat all the odds to once again upset the form book and win the silver medal in the event. The team of Fionan Cronin, Chris Bryan, Brian Coyne and James Lynch pitted their 50m sprinting speed against 12 other teams in the qualifying heats. They qualified third going into the final but were aware that some of the bigger clubs had used reserve swimmers in the heats. They responded with great determination in a very closely contested and exciting final. Each improved their leg by over 0.30 sec. in the final to just hold off Westwood from Dublin by 0.20 sec. to take the silver medal in a very fast time of 1.47.53. The time was only 0.04 sec. outside the Munster Junior record for this event. Keith O Farrell and Chris Bryan qualified for the final of the 100m backstroke for 16 year olds and finished fifth and seventh respectively. Once again as in the 200m backstroke Keith was agonisingly close to a top three finish and knows a medal was there for the taking. In the 11-12 year old boys 200m freestyle Bernard Cahill posted a pb of 2.25.03 in finishing 7th in the final of the event. This was a provisional converted improvement of over 3.70 secs. In the 16 year old boys Chris Bryan finished 6th in the final in a time of 2.03.98. This was another solid performance and and improvement on his pb of 2.04 secs. Kate Brooks was a bit outside her pb with a time of 2.28.41 in the 200m freestyle for 16 year olds. Chris Bryan finished a creditable 5th in the boys 16 year olds 400m I. M. in a time of 5.07.36. This was an approx. converted pb of 13 seconds. The final day of the championship brought the ultimate reward for Bernard O Brien in the boys 17 year old age group when he swept to victory in the 200m breaststroke in a time of 2.45.90. This was just reward for Bernard who just missed out on a medal in the 100m event. The first event of the final day was the 100m freestyle and started with Bernard Cahill qualifiying in sixth spot for the 11-12 year old boys 100m freestyle final. He swam well again in the final to improve his pb to 1.08.07 long course. Chris Bryan also qualified in sixth spot for the final of the boys 16 year old age group in a time of 58.90secs. breaking the long course minute barrier for the first time. He improved his time again in the final to 58.68 secs. but could not make an impression on the medal positions. However he had swam the 1500m freestyle event before the 100m finals and won a great silver medal with a new long course pb of 17.32.01. This was an improvement of 20 secs. on his previous best time. He had to work hard all the way and averaged consistant 1.10’s and 1.11’s for each 100m throughout with his first 100m in 1.02secs. and his last in 1.07 sec. Fionan Cronin broke the minute long course also for the first time in the 100m freestyle event for 16 year old boys clocking 59.77 secs. and finished 12th overall from thirty five. Tom Whyatt had 0.87 secs of an improvement in his 100m freestyle recording 1.01.67. In some events swimmers were disappointment when they may have expected more of themselves. However on the day they gave of their all in each event and that’s all anyone could expect. They represented their town and County proudly over the weekend and can be more than satisfied in that regard alone. [an error occurred while processing this directive] Top of Page |
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