Day 2  of the Irish Age Group & Summer OPEN Championships continued to produce some superb PB’s and performances from the Templeogue TEAM today.

The 5 day competition is the key domestic event for Irish Age Group athletes and serves as a great warmup for some athletes who may be progressing to the International meets later in the summer.  A busy National Aquatic Centre is host to the 900 athletes racing over the 5 day meet.

Ellen Walshe (12) converted some excellent recent form to produce some superb results as she took the GOLD medal in the 12Yrs 100BF in a superb new PB of 1:07.67 and returned to the finals this evening to produce a further PB to finish in the SILVER medal position in the Girls 12yrs 200FC, with a superb swim of 2:17.43.  As Walshe prepares to head to the British Age Groups in the next 2 weeks, these strong performances will help to build her confidence as she takes on her first overseas competition.

As the morning racing progressed with some tough heats in both the Fly and Freestyle events  Jessica Burke (14) was delighted too with her efforts for the day as she produced a PB in the first event of the day for her in the 100BF but she saved the best results to the 200FC where later in the session she powered to a new PB (2:15.3) in the morning to qualify for the finals this evening before converting another super swim to PB again (2:14.50) and finish in 5th place in the 200FC event in a very tightly contested final with a very well paced swim.

The day started with Tom Giblin (15) deliver a strong 50FC swim in the OPEN mens event before being followed in the womens event by Caoilfhinn Tan (14) and Ruth O’Gara (17) also delivered strong PB’s while Niamh Murphy (20) swam a strong heat to qualify for the semi-finals this evening, which was as good as it got as she continues her preparation for an event in Portugal in the coming few weeks.

Giblin was back on the block again as he put together a solid 200BF in what is a less raced event for him but a good indicator of how the preffered shorter BF events will progress.

The boys were again in the water as Joe Kenny (12) and Evan Rossiter (13) both converted strong PB’s in the 100BS as both boys race their first full year as Irish Division 1 Swimmers and were please with the PB’s delivered in this morning’s heats.  Kenny was back on the block to repeat his strong morning performance as he took a further 3 seconds off his 400IM time delivering a well paced effort en route to the planned result.

The final individual event of the morning saw a large number of Girls in the 200FC as Leah Martin (11) the youngest member of the TEAM converted a great 200FC PB to take some 5 seconds off her previous best, while Caroline Ryan (14) did likewise with a 7 second improvement for her old LC best time.  Both girls were delighted with their efforts as they had qualified at the Division 2’s in Limerick only a few weeks ago.  As the more experienced girls took to the blocks Muirin Goulding (15) and Nicole Walshe (15) were both pleased with their swims as Goulding posted a strong heat swim as Walshe powered her way to a fabulous new PB by over 2 seconds to finish in 2:17.29.  Ellen Walshe (12) and Jessica Burke (14) were then up to deliver the results posted earlier after strong PB’s also in the heats.

As the TEAM continues to race over the 5 days the key daily themes also move on on a daily basis.  Todays theme given to the athletes at this mornings team meeting rang true as the PB performances across the group were the real focus of the day and then capped off by Jessica Burke & Ellen Walshe making finals and of course the icing on top was Ellen’s double podium finishes.