TO ROUND OFF an outstanding fortnight for swimming on these shores, eight further records fell on the final day of Swim Ireland’s Irish Short Course Swimming Championships in Dublin.
In total, that’s 54 records broken by Irish swimmers in two weeks.
National Centre Dublin’s Niamh Coyne was the standout performer as she crashed through Rio 2016 Olympian Fiona Doyle’s 200m Breaststroke Irish record. 18-year-old Coyne shaved almost a second off Doyle’s 2015 time of 2:23.64, touching in 2:22.77 for the gold.
In the Men’s 200m Breaststroke final, it was a clean sweep for National Centre Limerick swimmers with Eoin Corby leading the charge with yet another Irish junior record — his fourth of the week and seventh in a fortnight.
The Treaty teenager lowered his own time of 2:09.02 from last week’s European Championships to 2:08.04 for gold, ahead of Liam Doyle (2:10.52) and Uiseann Cooke (2:14.71).
Ever-rising star Danielle Hill collected her fifth national title of the week in the women’s 50m Backstroke final with a time of 26.90. The Larne swimmer has had an incredible two weeks breaking a remarkable seven Irish Records. In the Men’s final Ards’ Paddy Johnston topped the podium in 24.77.
In tonight’s Ireland relay exhibition swims, all four national teams went under the previous Irish bests. The senior women dipped under the four-minute mark combining for 3:59.95, knocking over 15 seconds off the 1992 record.
The juniors blitzed the previous best of 4:25.58 in 4:12.38. In the Men’s event, the seniors broke a 2018 record of 3:27.23 in 3:26.60, while the juniors annihilated the previous standard of 3:56.15 in 3:37.10.
In this morning’s club relays, three new Irish Records were set with the women from Aer Lingus breaking Ards’ 2017 record of 1:55.01 in 1:53.99. In the Men’s event, gold medallists Bangor broke their own record of 1:38.75 in 1:38.34 while silver medallists Limerick, also broke their own junior record (1:45.11) in 1:43.80.
In today’s distance freestyle finals, Amelia Kane and Daniel Wiffen added 1500m gold to 800m gold from earlier in the week. Kane dipped below 17 minutes for the first time in 16:59.29, while Wiffen clocked 15:12.59.
The final individual event of the championships saw Kilkenny’s Naomi Trait and National Centre Dublin’s Robbie Powell land gold in the 200m Freestyle.
“The four days in Dublin bring to an end a very exciting and productive fortnight for Irish swimming,” National Performance Director Jon Rudd said.
“We thought that we had achieved something special when we returned from the European Championships last week with two medals and 20 new Irish records but to break another 34 this week to make it 54 in total is quite exceptional, particularly when we are re-breaking several of those records that are only a few days old.”
- Reporting from PR Swim Ireland, and Emma Duffy.
The42 is on Instagram! Tap the button below on your phone to follow us!
