Words: Barry Hanley Photos: Brian M. Whelan

The day got off to not the best of starts……..the cars were queued to the entrance of ALSAA but the gates were closed and we’d nowhere to go. It was decided that we’d park the cars in Santry and get the bus from there. The bus driver (Peter) was great and nothing was a problem, so off to Santry we went, parked the cars and loaded onto the bus.

We left Santry 10 minutes late and travelled to Wexford, arriving 10 minutes before the “warm-up”. The  gala started well for us with most swimmers qualifying for the final, and PB’s for everyone. The girls, as ever, leading the way, in particular, Katie and Leagh, both impressive in the backstroke, and winning gold. Not to be outdone, the lads followed up through Edan and Sam, both winning gold.

Next followed the breaststroke. Again, Katie, Leagh and Keara won gold. The under 10 boys final was a different matter with 4 Aer Lingus swimmers taking 5 of the finals slots. Less than half a second separated Dylan, Ciaran and Finn in the final with Dylan finishing first, Finn third with Ciaran sandwiched in between. The butterfly was a different matter altogether. Not many of our swimmers had competed in this event previously so it was with trepidation that many entered the event. The club had no need to worry though. Outstanding times from Christine, Meave and Eva with gold going to Leagh and Ciaran, while silver went to Sam and the Hurley brothers of Edan and Mitchell.

Up next came the freestyle. Gold was secured through Katie, Leagh and Dylan in the Under 9s, 10s and 10s respectively. A special mention must go to Amy who qualified 4^th, but improved her time in the heats to secure bronze in the final! The Dooley brothers being very unlucky, both just missing out on the Finals (but their day will come). Again, the boys under 10 had 4 swimmers in the final with a clean sweep led by Dylan.

And then came the relays!!!!! The first 4 relays were Freestyle and Aer Lingus showed their strength and depth with a clean sweep winning all 4 relays at the end of the first session. The IM’s were to come at the end of the second session. Sensing an unprecedented clean sweep of all the relays events, the club were led by Mark, Matthew (competing in his first ever gala), Claudia, Christine, Katie, Shane, Cian in the cheerleading stakes at the end of the pool cheering on their clubmates. The number increased as each of the relay teams finished their swims (as did the decibel level (my eardrums are still shot)), culminating in the pressure being on the U12’s to complete the clean sweep. And boy, did they deliver. The team (Matthew, Cian, Sean and Mitchel) won gold ensuring that the club won every single relay event on the day.

And so it was on the bus and home………………or not. The club decided a trip to McDonalds was the order of the day. But we had to find it first. Peter as ever, got us there, and “Happy Meals” were the preferred choice. With the input of coaches Jonny and Paula, and all the parents, a “special line” was formed and the staff of “the Golden Arches” were superb with all the kids being fed in record time. So with our stomachs filled, it was time for home. Full of coke, the kids had a ball on the way home and with it was with sheer delight, that the travelling parents handed the kids back to their respective parents, and we do solemnly apologise (not) for them bouncing off the walls until 11pm because of the “E’s” we fed them!!!! All told, a great day, without which would not have happened for all the parents, in particular, Ellen, Sandra and our photographer Brian.

Click here for more photos from the event.

Firstly we’re delighted to announce that Head Coach Alan Turner has once again won Club Coach of the Year.

Two of our Senior Squad members won Junior International Awards. Congratulations to Conor Turner and Sean O’Brien.

Conor was on hand to collect his award, whilst Sean was busy competing for Leinster at the Stockport Metro meet in the UK.

Next it was the turn of Jeff Phillips to be honoured, winning the Masters Outstanding Achievement Award.

Finally, Aer Lingus Swim Club was named Leinster Club of the Year.

Click here for more photos from the event.

Friday’s highlights included some of our youngest senior squad members clinching podium positions. Catriona Finley claimed bronze in the 200m IM. Faye Harling was squeezed into 2nd place by an agonizing .01 secs in the 100m breast. Then it was the turn of two of our seasoned swimmers to turn up the heat with Andrew Meegan and Rachel Nevins winning gold in the 1500m and 800m free respectively.

Saturday kicked off in pretty much the same fashion. The 200m IM was an all Aer Lingus affair with Ben Griffin, Andrew Meegan and Benjamin Doyle claiming the top spots. In between it was fantastic to see the latest additions to our senior squad, Rebecca Walsh and Sinead McCrohan making finals with ease.Then it was promptly back to business, with the club claiming all three medal positions in the men’s 400m IM. This time Andy Meegan led the charge, followed by Conor Turner with Ben Griffin claiming bronze. Benjamin Doyle posted an impressive 1.03.57 on his way to collecting silver in the men’s 100m backstroke. Andy later returned to the pool to win the 200m freestyle in a time of 1.56.27.

In the women’s 200m breast, Catrina English and Faye Harling guaranteed another gold and silver combo for the team. The men’s 800m relay team then decided to kick it up a notch. Rory Sloggett, Ben  Griffin, Conor Turner and Andy Meegan won the race with a whopping 34 secs to spare. Not to be outdone, our women’s 800m relay squad brought the curtain down on day two by posting a winning time of 9.30.19, a mere 20 secs ahead of the opposition!

Sunday kicked off with Rebecca Walsh finishing 1st and Sinead McCrohan grabbing 3rd in the 400m freestyle B  final. In the A final, Rachel Nevins and Wendy O’Neill split the field with their own mini “dual in the pool”.  Rachel finally prevailed with a fine display of tempo and rhythm to claim the gold medal position in a time of 4.36.88. Wendy’s smooth stroke would later claim gold in the 200m backstroke final.

No surprise, Andy Meegan won the 400 m freestyle with relentless pace that wore down his competitors. The winning margin was a comfortable 12 secs.  Benjamin Doyle continued his fine form by claiming bronze in the 200m backstroke final against much older competitors. Andy then led the arrowhead, with Aer Lingus SC claiming another triple in the men’s 200m fly. Conor Turner and Sean O’Brien rounded out the medal positions. In the last two events of the day, the men’s and woman’s 4 x 100m free relay the club finished 1st and 2nd ending the competition on a high note.

Many thanks to Brian Whelan and John Finlay for providing these wonderful images which capture the action on Friday and Saturday. We’ll have a full report on the meet soon…

Sometimes chance discoveries are the best. A few weeks ago a blog called flylikeagirl started following the club on twitter. Curious I decided to check it out and guess what? I’m glad I did, it’s a gem. So we’re delighted to welcome Kelly (from flylikeagirl…) with a guest post, offering some warm insights from a US swim parent and the roller coaster of emotion that come with the territory…

I never really understood trials and finals meets! If I blew it out of the water and got a best time I would quit while I was ahead. It’s like winning the lottery and then expecting to win again. Except that the lottery is all about luck and swimming is about talent and hard work. The great sport of swimming. All about duplicating, recreating, improving and proving. In your face.

There is also the sport of parenting a swimmer. It is more of a sport of trials and tribulations. Parent your child well in the sport of swimming? Do it again.Do it better. Improve upon that. And then prove it. And then start over again.

I wasn’t a swimmer so it is hard for me to get into the head of a swimmer. I can’t imagine a sport like swimming. soccer, football, rugby, lacrosse, field hockey – different equipment but essentially the same sport. Team sports, on a field. Same goes for softball, baseball and good old fashion kickball. Sometimes I imagine dance, gymnastics and figure skating to be like swimming. Long hours of practice and certainly individual sports. But, these sports are more subjective,based on athletic ability and artistic talent.  Subjective and judged. Track and field certainly is the sport most like swimming, it is based on a definitive measure, is an individual sport and time is everything, artistic impression means very little. In the US, kids don’t start competing in this sport until well into middle school and certainly very few train for it at a young age. At the age of 12 most kids have never participated in a track meet where as they may have spent the last 6 years at swim meets.

Swimming certainly has that in your face feel to it. The times don’t lie. When the times are on your side it is the best feeling in the world. When they aren’t, swimming can become a very isolating sport. It stares you in the face. It tears you down, rips you apart and leaves you on the side of the pool. Begging for mercy. At 12. Parenting the child who is dropping time is easy. Parenting through the rough times? WOW.

As a parent, I had to learn that swimming is a journey. Every child has a different path. I have a 12-year-old who has always been a slightly above average swimmer. She makes qualifying meets and tends to swim at prestigious meets – usually coming in middle of the pack.  I have a 10-year-old who is an average, middle of the road swimmer.  She does exceptionally well at meets that don’t include all of the fast swimmers. And then there is the 7-year-old who either does really well or really poorly at every meet.  No rhyme or reason. I have chosen to parent all three of my children through this sport in the same manner. None of this came to me right away, as a matter of fact it is still evolving. I am open to change. I am learning and growing. I have learned a few things that have helped ME be a better parent.

Every swimmer has a different path to success. You can’t look at a 7, 10 or 12-year-old and determine what kind of swimmer they will be at 18. It is easy to get caught up in the 12-year-old National Record Holders but when you watch the same kids race for many years on end you start to realize that it is very difficult for those fast swimmers to always drop time. Unless we start racing at the speed of light, there really is a cap on how fast a person can humanly go. In other words, there is nothing wrong with slow and steady progress.

On the other hand, the crazy fast kids can’t give up because they haven’t dropped time in a year. Hard work and talent go hand in hand.  It is easy to give up after a year of not dropping time. Bottom line, at 12, it doesn’t matter where you fall in the pack. Keep working and success is guaranteed.  Success is individual. It is so easy to celebrate success.  But, it isn’t the only thing.  To succeed, we have to fail.  Let your 9-year-old swim 500 free if they want to. Let them fail. Don’t tell them they will get disqualified for an illegal start, let them. Let them feel it, let them learn from it. They won’t be scarred for life. It is swimming! All the good swimmers DQ. Don’t shy away from a challenge, and learn from the mistakes. It doesn’t always suck, it might not even suck tonight.

Enjoy and appreciate consistency. The expectation to hit a home run every single time is unrealistic. Would you expect a baseball player to hit it out of the park every single time? Consistency is the key to success.There will be successes and then a period of plateau. It is normal. Allow children a foul ball or strike out from time to time. Encourage the child to have fun. Yes fun! Movies with friends after the meet is more important than the meet. The life of a swimmer can be isolating. You can’t change that so acknowledge that. Make it fun. It is important that you pick a coach you like and then like your coach. There is nothing else to say…

The most important thing is to listen to your child. When they say “I love swimming” what they mean is I am riding high. When they say “I hate swimming”, what they mean is, this sport is sucking the life out of me right now and I need to you to tell me it will be ok.  Last night my 12-year-old (did I mention girl hormones? No. Please help me) said I hate swimming, along with I suck at life, I am a terrible swimmer and I want to play Lacrosse. I looked her square in the eye and told her that sometimes I hate swimming too.  Sometimes I suck at life. I can’t even float. I am too old for Lacrosse but Bingo at my age might be a great sport.  We laid in her bed for an hour last night talking. I really do believe that right now she does hate swimming. She is tired, she has been swimming 5 days a week for 8 months in a row and she is swimming a huge meet this weekend. We need a break. I am not going to sugar coat it, she is right. It does suck sometimes. We are ok with that. We are in it together. And we will get through it together.

I am not a perfect parent, I have no qualifications to even give parenting advice. I have made mistakes and I plan to make more.  But if my kid can get up on the blocks and swim a perfect race, then come back four hours later and do it again, I owe it to them to do the same. Even more importanly, when they swim the race that doesn’t warrant a return to the blocks later than evening, it is ok to go home.

Words: Maurice Mc Crohan.

Well we survived the winter then, it was a mild one!

The snow shoe and tyre makers are sunning themselves in the Bahamas on their pre Christmas sales profits!.The local authorities have EU butter mountain style piles of grit and sand that were not utilised !The early morning swimming runs never seem quite as daunting when you don’t have to get the scraper and the de-icer spray out! Think all the extra ten minutes nap or  early morning stress we save when we peer out  at the car bleary eyed and then stare out again bleary eyed and keep staring bleary eyed til we realise,we can’t see without glasses or contacts!

The early morning panic ,do you have your swim gear,towel, net bag ,energy drinks …is not as manic when its dry outside and soon to be light! The summer suitcases/shelves can now be brought down and we peel off the winter wear.Of course at galas,we have a stock of summer gear in all year around supply to keep us comfortable in the heat of the indoor pool.

For those who volunteer to help at the galas, Leinster Swimming/Swim Ireland National Schools made us scrub up for pool duties! Co-ordinated greens for National Schools and piercing blues and whites for Leinster. The swimming year really starts to build from now towards the National and International events in June and July!  Different sports have different peaks! USA College Basketball has its March Madness. Rugby league has a millennium magic in May, football never tires of survival and super Sundays! Tennis seems to have no break just a permanent world tour and GAA have a winter league that no one watches and a summer all ireland that everyone does!

Swimming has  a short course autumn / early winter and rather like the days getting longer ,the galas go long from Spring!! Like the GAA players running up and down beaches in early mornings to peak in July our swimmers are doing something similar and even more often! Our top coaches training plans are adapting accordingly!

Lets wish all the swimmers the very best of luck to perform well and stay free from injury. Lets wish the coaches well as we get to the end of year galas.As for the parents,lets give us ourselves a pat on the back for surviving this far and renew our quest for the perfect coffee to drink when we are flagging on day two at the NAC.The time when we realise its two hours to our swimmers next event ,we are fed up of reading the Daily Mail and have just tripped over a swimmers bag!!

The club recently got together to honour the club’s top swimmers in 2011.

Coaches Jon Lambert and Paolo Di Paola made it clear that a combination of factors combined to make these swimmers stand out. It was not just top gala performances but hard work, dedication and acting as role models in and out of the pool which secured the awards in the B and Development Squads. Coach Alan Turner welcomed the fact that his decision was not made easy by the number of top swimmers in the Senior Squad. Its a good omen for the future that we have such strength in depth right across our three squads.

Well done to the following award winners;

Keara Caul, Michael Mc Grath, Matthew Burns, Jean Harling, Cian Cunningham, Sinead Mc Crohan, Faye Harling, Ben Griffin, Sean O’Brien and Conor Turner.

Click here for individual winners by category.

Words: Head Coach Alan Turner  Images: Brian Whelan.

“…Well done to Andy on this brilliant achievement.

It’s even more remarkable when you consider the previous record stood for 23 years. Ironically it was held by an ex-Aer Lingus  swimmer, Ken Turner. Andy set the new time by swimming the race in a negative split (the second 400m was faster than the first 400m). Andy’s time was an impressive 8 mins plus he broke the record during an early-morning event, never an easy thing to do.

Well done to all our swimmers who took part in the last short course meet of the season, roll-on the long course season!…”

Click here for more photos of Aer Lingus Swim Club in action…

Merry Christmas to all our swimmers, coaches and guardians!

A seasonal story by Maurice McCrohan.

It was Christmas week and I was feeling ratty.The shopping centres were packed. There was stress and car park rage and not just at Westwood! In my local shopping centre the same tunes were piped in to all shops.The charity sellers were singing  “Xmas is coming and the geese are getting fat” . GETTING FAT! I snapped. The only ones getting fat are Slade and Wizard on the royalities from their seasonal songs! Bah Humbug!!

That night my sleep was disturbed. There was the sound of rattling chains and a ghostly figure entered the room. You must mend your ways.You will be visited by ghosts over the next three nights who will get you to change!! woooh!! The next night a ghostly figure entered the room and said come with me on a journey to your past. We are at the ALSAA pool canteen. I recognise the swim parents but we all look younger,less gray with more hair. Our children are in the pool.They too are younger, its the trials for the swim club. No more coming here at 10.30am on a Saturday morning  fighting for slots in the car park and eating too many bacon sambos!

Whats this bank duty thing  I ask one parent? I think that’s a rota where parents collect fees and have to lodge them in the airport bank. Oh I see! what are galas like? They are like a day out at the fair. The kids swim and the parents go off and have coffee. Its great fun!! On the second night, I hear the beep beep beep of my alarm.Its 4.20am ,time for Sinead to get up for the next early session! A ghostly figure enters the room.”I am the ghost of Christmas present and this is what your days are going to be like!! Five minutes later I am asleep and its beep beep beep. The alarm goes again and the cycle repeats again and again. Its groundhog day.

The ghost then takes me to a swimming pool.”Sorry excuse me, can I get past?” Its gala day at a club pool. A coffee is spilled over me. I go outside its cold, then come back in and its hot! Its like the Katy Perry song. Then me, the ghost and Sinead are in the car. We arrive at Westwood.”What are we doing here?” shouts Sinead  ”we should be at the NAC!” On the third night its Christmas eve, an immaculately white suited ghost arrives. “I am the ghost of your swimming future, come with me!”. I am the one now dressed in cleanly pressed whites! Maybe I am opening the batting at Lords? I then hear a public announcement “Lanes 1 and 2 are sprint lanes, can coaches get your scratch sheets in by 9 o’ clock”

I am at the NAC on a big gala day.As I walk around I attract attention and then the questions start? What time is the first race?,do I have to check in?.Where are the toilets? Can you do something about the heat?I don’t like Rihanna blaring out when my swimmers are warming up! I realise I am a swim official! Then somebody comes up to me gives me a sheet of paper. “Quick,you’re late for the meeting the turn judges are waiting!”. I enter a room of quizzical looking volunteers,read the crib sheet and freeze! Oh no,I have to give the turn judge technical talk!I don’t have  a clue!!. An embarrassed silence punctuated by nervous coughs ensues! Ok,I better start! ”Welcome everyone, for health and safety reasons please note your nearest exit – one forward one back!”

“Lets go through the strokes. For freestyle,the bewleys coffees and bagels are excellent!” Puzzled looks descend!”I’m joking, you are not needed on freestyle unless you are on for a distance race where you do  a lap count and blow a big whistle near the end!”. Breastroke: look for the heads bobbing up and down a bit in the water and make sure two hands touch the end wall! Backstroke: windmill style actions are allowed.! The swimmer can turn over when they reach the wall and check up at the clock! Butterfly: when they reach the end wall,the swimmers must not cross their legs!!

Everyone got that! any questions?No?,good!,silence and they leave. I turn to the ghost who has reappeared,I think I got away with that! The day goes fine until the last race,the medley relay. Aer Lingus SC Senior girls smash the Irish record and cheers ring out.Until there is a objection on a stroke.The referee turns to the line official,theres a conflab and they all bear down on me! Well,was the stroke right or wrong!I am enveloped in a scrum of white suits and and ……

I wake up its 4.30am on the clock. There is no beep,beep beep.But I thought I heard the sound of  a sleigh on the roof and a ho ho ho its Christmas Day! Its now Christmas day lunchtime and we’ve opened our presents. The smell of the turkey cooking in the oven wafts around the kitchen. A glass of freshly poured mulled wine is on the counter and on RTE1 Augustus Gloop is about to fall into Willy Wonkas chocolate river!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tis Christmas,have a great one!

Barry Murphy with our B Group Squad

The club was delighted to welcome a special guest to the annual B Group gala.

Aer Lingus swimmer, Olympian and multiple national record holder Barry Murphy was guest of honor at the event. Barry was fantastic with our younger swimmers, offering plenty of tips and inspiration to the squad. Fresh from his tremendous success at the Irish Short Course Nationals Barry was also on hand to present awards to our future stars.

No doubt everybody at Aer Lingus SC will be following Barry’s progress with keen interest at London 2012. We’re looking forward to welcoming Barry  back to the club very soon.

Thanks Barry!