The Irish Age Groups Division 2 Swimming Championships were held over the weekend of Thursday 29 June – Sunday 2 July 2017 in UL Sport, Limerick.
Breifne Swim Club have been working really hard since January 2017 to secure their qualifying times to compete in these championships and although a number of swimmers qualified for this meet, only 4 swimmers made the trip to Limerick to take part in this event. They were Leah Smith, Lloyd Hastings, Ciara McGill and Louis Maguire.
All 4 swimmers were in action on the Friday with the first of the Breifne quartet taking part in the 100 Meter Backstroke. Leah Smith was up first for the girls securing a great PB time of 1.13.98, taking 2.28 seconds of her previous time.
Louis Maguire was up next also swimming the 100 Meter Backstroke, again gaining a PB time of 1.19.88, knocking 3.35 seconds of his previous time. This secured him a 7th place in the preliminary heats and a qualification into the finals later in the evening. Lloyd Hastings also swam the 100 Meter Backstroke and another PB time earned of 1.13.70 taking 0.83 seconds of his previous time.
Leah and Louis also swam the 200 Meter Freestyle with Leah swimming in 2.25.81, narrowly missing out on a PB time on this occasion. Louis swam his 200 Meter Freestyle in 2.38.54, taking an incredible 6.32 seconds of his previous time. Again this earned him 7th place in the preliminaries and another place in the finals later on.
Last event of the day was the 100 Meter Breaststroke and there were 3 Breifne swimmers competing in this. First up was Ciara McGill who swam a PB time of 1.29.43 taking 0.34 seconds of her previous time. Leah Smith was next in the water and swam a PB time of 1.23.81 taking 1.55 seconds of her previous time. This swim earned her 7th place in the preliminaries and a place in the final later in the evening. Lloyd Hastings was the final competitor for the club, swimming his 100 Meter Breaststroke in a time of 1.24.19 earning another PB and taking 4.38 seconds of his previous time.
Exciting Finals were held on Friday evening with Louis going first for the 100 Meter Backstroke. He swam this event in 1.19.82 taking 0.06 seconds from his previous time in the morning session. Louis came in 5th position overall and narrowly missed out on a podium position by under 1 second. Louis was up again for the next event of the 200 Meter Freestyle, again he took 0.70 seconds of his morning time to give him another PB of the day of 2.37.84. Louis finished 7th overall.
The last finalist of the evening for Breifne was Leah Smith swimming 100 Meter Breaststroke. Leah swam a fantastic race and again gained another PB time of 1.22.84 taking 0.97 seconds of her previous time from the morning session. This gained her 4th position overall narrowly missing out on a medal by a nail biting 0.01 second.
Saturday saw just 2 of the Breifne swimmers competing, Leah Smith and Louis Maguire. Leah Smith took part in the 100 Metre Butterfly event gaining another PB of the competition with a time of 1.09.81, this time gave Leah a 1st place going into the evening final. Leah’s second event of the day was the 200 Meter Individual Medley. Leah swam this in 2.37.50 taking an incredible 6.94 seconds of her previous time and giving her a 1st place and another final in the evening.
Louis swam 3 events on Saturday. First up was 100 Meter Butterfly with a time of 1.22.73, taking 5.34 seconds of his previous time and gaining a 1st place going into the final later that evening. Next event of 200 Meter Backstroke saw Louis PB a whopping 10.42 seconds, securing him a time of 2.53.99 and another place in the evening final. His final event of the morning session was the 200 Meter Individual Medley which saw Louis again PB his previous time by 4.89 seconds giving him a time of 2.57.02 and a third final place for the evening session.
Another exciting Finals was held on Saturday evening with Leah Smith up first in her 100M Butterfly event. Leah didn’t disappoint and swam her way into first position with a time of 1.09.94 and gaining a Gold Medal.
Louis was up next for his 100M Butterfly event and swam another PB time from his morning session of 1.20.31 taking another 2.42 seconds of this event. This gained Louis 2nd position taking home the Silver Medal.
Louis was in action again in the 200 Meter Backstroke event and again Louis took another 1.49 seconds of his time from earlier. He finished in 7th place overall.
Leah Smith swam her second final of the evening in the 200 Meter Individual Medley. Here she took 0.08 seconds of her earlier time and finished in an incredible 2nd place taking home the Silver Medal.
Louis competed in his 3rd final of the evening, 200 Meter Individual Medley. Here Louis swam another fantastic race and finished 6th overall.
The final day of the competition saw 3 Breifne swimmers in action. First up was the 200 Meter Breaststroke and Ciara McGill and Leah Smith took part in this event. Ciara swam a PB time of 3.15.18, taking 1.49 seconds of her previous time, while Leah swam it in 3.03.26 seconds taking 5.52 seconds of her previous time and gaining another PB time of the completion.
100 Meter Freestyle was the final event, and all 3 swimmers took part in this. Ciara McGill secured her 3rd PB time of the weekend gaining 1.09.67. Leah swam in 1.03.77 securing her 7th position and a place in the evening final. Louis also gained a place in the evening final swimming in a time of 1.12.71, taking 2.94 seconds of his previous time.
In the last final of the competition, Leah swam her 100 Meter Freestyle in a time of 1.03.73 gaining 6th place overall. Louis swam his 100 Meter Freestyle in a time of 1.11.39, taking another 1.32 seconds of his previous time and gaining him 6th place overall.
A great competition for Breifne Swim Club and a fantastic way to end the season, after months of hard work. A special note of thanks to our Head Coach, Ann Coyle, who tirelessly puts in hours of work coaching our swimmers to gain these successes.
A full list of results can be found here.
