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National Age Groups Division 2 Finals in U.L. Page last updated: Jun 25, 2006 - 10:24:00 PM |
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The National Age Groups Division 2 Finals were held in U.L. at the end of June. Ennis Swimming & Lifesaving Club had 16 competitive swimmers who achieved the requisite qualifying times for entry to this Championship event. The club had their most successful championships for some years when they returned with a total of 20 medal placings which included 6 individual national titles and 5 relay team titles. The trophy for the most successful swimmer of the championships also went to Ennis Swimming club when 18 year old David Brooks capped a brilliant weekend winning 3 gold medals and 2 silvers. He also made the final in the 100m breaststroke, his sixth individual event and finished sixth. David was also part of the 17-24 year old teams which won both gold medals in the 200 meter freestyle and medley relays. 17 – 24 yr. old age group: David Brooks won the first of his national titles when beating O Connell from the Kingdom club by over one second in the 200m I.M. in a time of 2.25.10. In his next event, the 100m backstroke he won gold number two when clocking a very good time of 1.05.49. It was his team mate, Kieran Spellman who challenged him this time for the title and he pushed him all the way to the finish. The two were comfortably ahead of the bronze medal swimmer with Kieran posting a 1.06.26 for the silver medal. David’s third national title was won in the 100m butterfly in a time of 1.06.17. He was the class of the field and won with over 2 seconds to spare from A. Finn of Claremorris. The first event of the weekend saw David collect a silver medal when he recorded times of 58.49 secs. in the heats and 58.66 secs. in the final of the 100m freestyle. He qualified in first place and after a great battle was just pipped by O Connell from the Kingdom club. His other silver was won in the 200m freestyle in a time of 2 mins. 10.41 secs. Kieran Spellman finished fifth overall in the 200m I.M. in 2.33.22. He just missed the final in the 100m butterfly with a time of 1.13.37. Kevin Mannion had some good all round performances and just failed to make finals on a number of occasions. Eilis Ryan was sixth overall in the 200m I.M. in 2.57.80. She went one better to finish fifth in the final of the 100m breaststroke in 1.33.01. She finished just outside the top 8 in both the 100m and 200m freestyle events. 16 yr. old age group: Matthew Casey won the national title for the 100m breaststroke event in 1.16.86 an improvement of over one second in his pb. He needed to produce such a swim to overcome his team mate Cormac O Sullivan who produced a pb to be seeded number one going into the final. It was a very exciting race with four swimmers in contention over the final 10 meters. Matthew produced the telling kick to be the clear winner and Cormac was edged into bronze medal position by only hundreds of a second with a pb of 1.17.75. Matthew produced another strong performance when winning the silver medal in the 200m I.M. in 2.34.76. He had to hold off Mc Carthy from Wexford who had a faster time than him going into the event but set a new pb by more than 2 secs. to take the silver by just 0.03 secs. Timmy Bergin snatched a well earned bronze medal by a mere one tenth of a second in the 100m freestyle with a new pb of 1.01.57. This was a very competitive race and he did extremely well to take one of the medal positions. Conor Bredin also qualified for the final and was a bit out of luck when swimming below his pb and finished in seventh place. Timmy Bergin and Conor made the final of the 100m butterfly and finished 7th and 8th respectively. Timmy was 7th overall in the 200m freestyle. In the girls events Aoife Nihill qualified for the final of the 100m butterfly and was placed sixth. She also finished sixth overall in the 200m freestyle improving her pb by over 2.50 secs. to 2.29.00. 15 yr. old age group: Niamh Henegan won her first national medal in the 200m freestyle event. She produced a really powerful performance over the last half of the race to get up at the finish by over 0.50 of a second and was just less than two tenths of a second from taking silver. This was won of the outstanding performances by an Ennis swimmer at these championships considering she went into the race with a pb that only placed her thirteenth in the rankings. She reduced her pb by seven seconds to win the bronze medal. She also set a 2 second pb of 1.09.66 in the 100m freestyle and knocked over 7 seconds from her 200m I.M. time when finishing tenth overall in 2.52.98. Sionnach Guilfoyle finished sixth in the final of the 100m breaststroke setting a new pb of 1.24.13, over 1.50 seconds inside his old time. He took nearly nine seconds off his 200m freestyle time when finishing 15th overall in 2.29.83 and was 10th overall in the 100m butterfly in a new pb of 1.22.45. 14 yr. old age group: Oisin Guilfoyle had a very rewarding championships which included securing two national championships in the 100m butterfly and 100m freestyle events. He also ended the gala as the leading swimmer of this age group. Oisin was ranked second in the butterfly and turned in two brilliant efforts in the heat and final to twice set new pb’s and reduce his time by a total of 4 seconds. He won in a time of 1.10.21 and had a two second cushion on O Sullivan from Waterford in second place. He collected his second gold medal when he won the 100m freestyle in a time of 1.02.99. He had to post a new pb of 2 seconds to withstand the stiff challenge from O Driscoll of Templeogue who finished only 0.40 secs. behind him. Dylan Barrett was another who won his first national medal when he took bronze in the 100m breaststroke in 1.22.31. This was a really terrific performance and turned out to be the closest finish to a race of the weekend. It was a blanket finish with only 0.80 sec. separating the first seven swimmers. Dylan lost out on second place by only two hundredths of a second and on the gold by one tenth of a second. Shane Spellman was very unfortunate in this event when qualifying for the 100m final in second place. He lost his balance on the starting blocks when they were held by the starter for an unusually long time. It was ruled a false start and he was eliminated. . Oisin had a four second pb when placed 11th in the 200m freestyle in 2.22.34. Shane Spellman had a 10 second pb of 2.23.14 and was thirteenth overall. Oisin posted a 2.50 sec. pb in the 200m I.M. to finish 12th overall. Dylan Barrett posted a first ever time of 2.47.78 to finish 20th overall. Shane Spellman and Declan Bredin both had pb’s in all of their events. The 17 – 24 year old boys team of David Brooks, Kieran Spellman, Kevin Mannion and Sionnach Guilfoyle won gold in the 200m freestyle relay event in 1.51.00 holding off a strong Clonmel team by 0.80 second. The same team line-up also took the 200m freestyle relay title in 2.05.44 with 2.50 seconds of an advantage again over the Clonmel team. The boys 15 – 16 year olds team of Timmy Bergin, Conor Bredin,Cormac O Sullivan and Matthew Casey won the team title in the 200m medley relay in a time of 2.10.63, one and a half seconds ahead of the Galway team. They also did the double by taking gold again in the 200m freestyle relay in 1.53.09. This time they were over four seconds ahead of Galway in second and Templeogue in third spot. The 13 – 14 year old boys team consisting of Oisin Guilfoyle, Shane Spellman, Declan Bredin and Dylan Barrett took first place and the national team title for the 200m medley relay event in a time of 2.16.41, just 0.71 secs. ahead of Lisburn Swimming Club. The positions were reversed however in the 200m freestyle relay when they had to settle for the silver in a very tense race where the lead changed hands on everal occasions. Their time of 2.01.49 was only one tenth of a second behind the winners. [an error occurred while processing this directive] Top of Page |
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