On the weekend that Ireland beat the All Blacks rugby team at home for the 1st time all the talk in Ulster was about the Swim Ulster Short Course Championships at the Lagan Valley LeisurePlex with more than 1000 entries over the 3 days. New Enniskillen Lakelander Head Coach, Aaron Rickhuss, had only 1 week to prepare five of the clubs’ top swimmers for the event with a total of 32 entries.

 

Thirteen-year-old Ellie McCartney has dominated her age group Breaststroke events and is now having successful open meets at a Provincial level. Last year saw Ellie lift the 200m Breaststroke Open Title while this year she returned to Enniskillen with both the 100m and 200m Breaststroke Titles, in races against swimmers up to six years older than her, as well as four Ulster Junior Titles against 15 and under swimmers. In the 100m Breaststroke heat Ellie was the fastest Junior and was awarded Junior Champion of the Year. In the final she knocked more than a second off her PB to win Gold and the Cup in a time of 1:12.52. This feat was repeated in the 200m Breaststroke were Ellie was the fastest Junior in the heats and top seed in for the final where Ellie smashed her PB by 5 seconds to retain the Cup she won last year. In the 100m Individual Medley the Enniskillen swimmer once again finished the heats as fastest Junior and went on to finish the final in fourth position 1/100th of a second behind a 20-year-old as well as a 17 and 18-year-old. In the 200m IM Ellie was again awarded the Junior Champion as well as being second seed for the final but withdraw from it due to the proximity to the 200m Breaststroke Final. The 50m Breaststroke followed and Ellie swam another PB to finish 4th – 4/100ths of a second behind the Bronze Medal winner. New PBs were also recorded in the 100m Freestyle to finish 18th and in the 50m Butterfly to finish 22nd overall. This sets Ellie up nicely for the Swim Ireland Short Course Championships in 3 weeks’ time at the same venue.

 

Kealan McShea has been in fantastic form this year and this continued into the championships with three top 6 finishes over two days of competition. The sixteen year old made the final in the 200m IM and just missed out on a medal finishing fourth and almost matched this in the 100m Backcrawl finishing fifth. Kealan also PB’d in the 100m Butterfly and the 200m Backcrawl bur missed out on a final place in the 50m Freestyle.

 

Lewis McCartney was back to his best over the weekend with six personal bests from 7 events, 1 final and 3 reserve final positions. His best event was the 100m Breaststroke where he smashed almost 4 seconds of his PB to finish in 1:11.00. Good PBs were also achieved in the 100m IM heat and final, the 100m & 200m Backcrawl as well as his favoured 50m Freestyle.

 

Ben Lynch, fourteen, competed in 6 events over the three-day meet. Bens most notable performances were a 39 second PB to finish in fourth place in the 1500m Freestyle, 3 second PB in the 200m Freestyle to gain a place in the final were he finished in 8th place and a 6th place finish in the 400m Freestyle. 

 

12 year old Isobel Lannon joined the senior squad in attending her first Ulster Short Course Championship. Under the watchful eye of Head coach, Aaron Rickhuss, Izzy used the opportunity to build on her experience at this level of competition and performed steady swims in both the 200m Backcrawl in a time of 2:47.76 and 3:08.02 in the 200m Breaststroke. 

Head Coach, Aaron, was impressed by the performances over the weekend and now has three weeks to fine tune the swimmers for the National Short Course meet in three week’s time.

 

Enniskillen Lakelanders Swimming Club, Ulster Short Course Gala 2018