ALSC Gala May 2010

All photographs courtesy of: Brian Whelan.

From Coach Hayley;

“…Brilliant performances from all who competed! I’ve counted 152 pb’s altogether, Emma Garret made division 1 time on her 200im in 2.50 and a few others qualified for Division 2. Huge pb’s from B Groupers knocking up to 20secs off times and others swimming events for the first time, in particular those who swim in lane 1 who have not swam a competition yet but handled Sunday with no hesitation and showed great potential. Unfortunately some swimmers goggles/hats came off on the dive of theirs races but fair play to each of them for keep  on swimming…and in some cases pb-ing despite the disadvantage!-great to see!

There was medal positions in every event and most ages, Jean Harling and Matthew Hynes collected a number of gold  medals under 10, also to medal in that age group was Fionnan McMenamin, Aidan Mullaney, Barry Rodgers, Caoimhe  Branagan, Sarah Cahill, and Ava Lambert (who gave, in my opinion, the best performance of the day when she took  gold in the girls 50 butterfly clocking a time of 41.22 – the fastest time of all ages who participated), to name but a few!

In the older age groups Saoirse Kilgarrif won gold in the 200 bc in a time of 2.46 after just winning the 100 back in a time of 1.16. A number of swimmers swam for time, being too old for the ages allocated for this competition, one of which was Reuben O’Sullivan who swam the 100 freestyle to break the 1 minute barrier and did so in 59.89. His teammate Sean O’Brien stormed in a 54.9.

As well as fantastic performances it was great to see all the support from parents (who gave up a whopper day to stay indoors), cheering and support was great and a super display of sportsmanship from the swimmers towards their fellow competitors…in particular at the beginning of the first session Annie pointed out to me that Eoin Gormley, swims in lane 3 of the b group, swam his 200im (pb’d in a 3.23.40) finished second in his race and when the last swimmer came in Eoin clapped for him and shook his hand while in the pool.

Its very rare that you see a swimmer as young as 12 show as much respect as Eoin displayed and this kind of behaviour deserves to be acknowledged and celebrated – on behalf of the coaches we are very proud of Eoin and many others who represent Aer Lingus like this…and of course for all swimmers that represent our club with their gutsy swims!

Thanks for all the help; gala went smoothly and congratulations to all the swimmers!…”