The Final day of racing for the TEMPLEOGUE Team at the Leinster AGE Group & Summer OPEN Championships delivered in a similar fashion to the previous two days of racing.  In its totality this weekend has been a fantastic display by the club’s athletes of how well they’ve improved year to date and the effort and discipline they have applied to training.

The day kicked off with the Middle distance 400’s for the team as Joe Kenny (11), Evan Rossiter (12) & Greg Sinnott (13) swam some great new PB’s while Traolach McKnight (15) & Eoin Feighan (14) swam on their best times but delivering strong LC races. Tom Giblin (14), Stephen Herlihy (14), Jonah Clegg (16) & Jason Cosgrove (16) were delighted with their collective PB smashing as Cosgrove also qualified for Irish National Championships with his effort, while Graham Field (19) delivered a winning swim with ease in his event.

In the Girls event Caoilfhinn Tan (13) & Muirin Goulding (14) delivered great BIG PB’s while Ellen Walshe (11) learned loads from her swim.  Her Sister Nicole Walshe (14) also put in a strong swim as training partner Jessica Burke (13) smashed her PB while Alison O’Driscoll (17) also delivered a good swim to finish in 3rd place in her age group.

In the Breastroke events Daniel Martinez-Dunn (10) built on his experience of the event yesterday to deliver a much improved swim and a Long Course PB, while Evan Rossiter (12) and Joe Kenny (11) both posted fine PB’s with Kenny moving to finals this evening and delivering another superb swim and PB to take the bronze Medal.  Eoin Feighan (14) & Stephen Herlihy (14) produced some good swims while Traolach McKnight (15) repeated his performance from yesterday delivering a fine new PB.  Jonah Clegg (16) and Ruairi McCarthy (14) were successful in the morning to secure finals places and both returned tonight to further improve heats swims and PB’s in their respective age group finals.

The girls also delivered further great swims as Anna Offergeld (12), Ellen Walshe (11), Alison O’Driscoll (17) & Jessica Burke (13) swam well with Anna & Ellen delivering PB’s in the heats as Alison & Jessica qualified tonight for finals with Burke converting a PB and O’Driscoll a seasons best and a Gold Medal result.

The 200BF event produced arguably the swim of the day as Ellen Walshe (11) qualified for the final in a strong new PB which she completely demolished en route to an 18 second PB improvement, A National Squad Qualifying time and a silver medal swim.  All in all a superb swim.

The final individual events of the weekend was the 100BC where Evan Rossiter (12) again posted another new PB as Callum Ramkaun (13), Stephen Herlihy (14) and Ruairi McCarthy (14) also posted strong results as McCarthy qualified for the final in his age, and further smashed up a PB in this evenings finals session.  Graham Field (19), Jonah Clegg (16) & Jason Cosgrove (16) were all racing heats together, which helped as they all qualifed for finals with All 3 boys delivering LC PB’s while Field picked up another Gold medal in his age group. 

The girls final individual event saw Nicole Walshe (14), Muirin Goulding (14) & Aisling Field (13) battle it out in the heats with all girls hitting PB swims and Goulding getting the touch over her team mates.  Alison O’Driscoll (17) qualified for the final session and yet again finished in bronze medal position in her swim, while Caoilfhinn Tan (13) & Jessica Burke (13) both swam PB’s to qualify for their age group final, again a year out of age, but both girls further swam new PB’s in the finals in their last event of the weekend.

The relays today were fruitful for ALL teams as the Boys 12 & 13 FTR (Evan Rossiter, Greg Sinnott, Callum Ramkaun & Finn O’Keeffe), Boys 14 & 15 FTR (Ruairi McCarthy, Stephen Herlihy, Eoin Feighan & Tom Giblin) and Girls 13 & 14 FTR (Muirin Goulding, Caoilfhinn Tan, Nicole Walshe & Jessica Burke) all picked up podium placings in 3rd, 2nd & 2nd respectively

The Weekend as a whole has been great for the TEAM with a huge number of PB’s and great long course racing delivered by all competitors.  

In the overall Age group standings Tom Giblin (14) finished up in 3rd overall in the Boys 14/15 Age Group, while Alison O’Driscoll (17) also finished 3rd in the 17+ Girls Age Group & Graham Field (19) finished as winner of the Boys Open Age Group.

Now back to work to prepare for the Irish Age Group Division 2 championships in Limerick at the end of June & the Irish National Age Group Division 1 & Summer Open Championships in Mid July will also be a focus event for the athletes.