Division 1, Summer National Finals 2018

8 Medals for Enniskillen Lakelanders....

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The 2018 Irish Summer Nationals took place last week in Dublin with swimmers from all over Ireland and Europe as well as faraway places like Dubai, Toronto and India. The largest swimming event in Ireland saw 130 events and finals split into almost 500 heats with 4,630 entries by 830 swimmers competing at the National Aquatic Centre hoping for personal bests, finals, medals and Irish titles. Thirty six clubs from outside Ireland participated. The event took place over five days with three sessions each day; older swimmers first thing followed by the 14 and under mid morning with Finals taking place each evening. The Enniskillen Lakelanders had five swimmers involved in individual events and a relay returning with 5 Gold Medals ??, 1 Silver Medal ?? and 2 Bronze Medals ?? as well as a fantastic number of Personal Bests and Final qualifications.

The youngest member of the squad, Ellie McCartney, swam in 10 events and qualified for finals in every event with fantastic PBs. The 13-year-old returned home with 4 Irish titles winning Gold in the 100m & 200m Breaststroke as well as the 200m and 400m Individual Medley. On the 1st day of the Meet Ellie qualified fastest in the heats for the 100m Breaststroke and the gruelling 400m Individual Medley. That evening Ellie returned to the poll to win Gold ?? in the 100m Breaststroke with a new personal best of 1:14.51 – a new club record and ending her season as the fastest 13-year-old girl in the UK and Ireland. This was followed within the hour with the 400m Individual Medley where Ellie smashed 18 seconds off her time to win another Gold Medal ?? in a time of 5:12.41 – another club record at any age. The second day saw Ellie compete in the 50m Freestyle where she finished 5th fastest with a new PB as well as 100m Butterfly to finish 7th and the 200m Breaststroke. Ellie qualified for all three finals and was targeting the latter as the priority. During the evening session Ellie was composed and swam a fantastic race to win the 200m Breaststroke by 10 seconds in a time of 2:38.58 – another Gold Medal ?? and club record, but more importantly a consideration time for the Swim Ireland Irish National Squad. Her performance was noted by the Swim Ireland website as “Swim of the evening” as well as being singled out by the National Performance Director as one of the picks of the day. Jon Rudd said “a National Squad consideration time from Ellie, one year earlier than projected in this event with a storming back 100 for close to even pacing across the two halves”. The following day Ellie PB’d in the 400m finishing 7th overall before knocking 7 seconds off her 200m Individual Medley to win her fourth Gold Medal ?? of the Meet in a time of 2:26.72. On Saturday she finished 12th in the 100m Freestyle and excelled in her weakest event, 100m Backcrawl, completing the final in 7th position. On the last day Ellie swam the 800m Freestyle for the 2nd time ever, ending the Meet as the 7th fastest in Ireland. Credit must go to the Lakelanders coaching team as well as Andrew Bree for his recent help in getting these results.

Oisin Mc Manus qualified for 10 events at the Irish National Finals. On day 1, in the punishing 400m Individual Medley (IM), he finished with a personal best (PB) and qualification for the final, where he took the Silver medal ??. Day 2 saw Oisin compete in the 100m Butterfly and the 200m Breastroke, where he posted 2 excellent swims with PB's in both, narrowly missing out on a medal with 4th place in the Breastroke. Day 3 dawned and Oisin's 2 strongest events, the 200m IM and the 1500m Freestyle were in front of him, but with 8th and 6th place rankings - he knew he'd need to work hard. The 200m IM prelims, brought another PB and another final, where he added a Bronze medal ??. In the 1500m Freestyle, Oisin showed his ownership of an event where he was 2016 13/U Irish champion. Starting steadily Oisin however was 25m adrift of the leaders at the midpoint, but he passed the leader in the last 15m to finish 1st in his heat on a time of 17.39m, a huge 22.15s PB. But the ranking 1st position swimmer had yet to swim... and so there followed a nail biting 17.41 minutes of the 2nd heat where on the final 15 metres it became clear that Oisin had taken the Gold medal ??. On the final day, he put in a storming performance in the 800m Freestyle to finish with a 13s PB and Bronze medal ??, taking his event tally to 4 medals. And so after 10 events, 16 races (heats/finals), 10 PBs and 4 medals an elated Oisin headed home for a welcome 4 week break before training begins again in September for next time.

Kealan McShea, who turned 16 this week, entered 7 events in a very competitive age group. He impressed his coach on day 1 when he reached the final of the demanding 400m IM to finish in 5th place overall with a 9 second PB in a time of 4.58. He followed this with a swim to his PB in the 100m breaststroke. On Day 2 Kealan had a great swim in the 200m breaststroke reaching an unexpected final with a PB of 6 seconds finishing in an excellent 8th place overall. Thanks to his coach Rob Eynon as a year ago Kealan had not featured in this event. On Friday he had two further swims in the 100m Free and 200m IM the latter resulting in first reserve for the final. Kealan missed day 4 of the meet as he travelled to Castlewellan to compete in the Ulster Fleadh. On Sunday he returned to round off a successful meet in the 200m backstroke once again achieving a PB of 5.55secs and reserve for the final. Kealan would also like to thank Nigel McGrath Sports and Remedial Massage Therapy for his help in preparing him for the meet.

Ben Lynch competed in 5 events. He showed great improvement in the 800m freestyle and 1500m freestyle where he had a 13 second PB to finish in 5th place and a 20 second PB to finish in 6th place respectively.

Lewis McCartney was attending the Championships for a third year and is continuing to challenge in this difficult age group. Participating in seven events the 16 year old finished inside the top 20 in each of them narrowly missing out in 2 finals. Some great PBs in 100m & 200m Breastroke following additional training with double Olympian Andrew Bree and the 100m Butterfly saw Lewis finish the season on a high.

The three boys were joined by Connor McKenzie for the 4 x 200m Freestyle relay on the Wednesday evening where they finished 15th.

These senior swimmers had training long and hard over the season and this success is testament to their improvement and dedication in the pool. All swimmers and parents were grateful to the Sponsor, Cavanagh Kelly, for providing their Div 1 event kit. And special thanks were reserved for Enniskillen Lakelanders Committee and Coaches Rob Eynon and Fionna Martin for their support and guidance throughout the season and their close coaching during the 5 days of the event.