Records continued to fall on the final day of competition at Swim Ireland’s Dave McCullagh Memorial and Swim Ulster International in Bangor.
Brendan Hyland set a new 100m Butterfly senior standard in tonight’s Final, breaking his own 2013 record of 54.50 in 54.27 seconds. Hyland who trains with the Swim Ireland Performance Centre at the NAC and lives on the National Sports Campus commented after the event “I was surprised at the record, I haven’t rested for this event so it was great to get that time and I’m looking forward to Nationals in April to go even faster.”
Shauna O’Brien was just shy of a second Irish Record this weekend when she won the Women’s 100m Butterfly Final. O’Brien, who set a new standard in the 50m Butterfly on Saturday, clocked 1:00.54 just one hundredth of a second off Bethany Carson’s record of 1:00.53.
Larne’s Conor Ferguson set his fourth Irish Junior Record of the weekend. Ferguson set records in all three Backstroke events over the weekend winning the 100m and 200m events with his latest record coming in the Final of the 200m. The 15 year olds time of 2:03.88 was over a second faster than the previous time that he had held from 2014 2:05.25.
Alex Murphy joined his UCD team mate Shauna O’Brien in qualifying for the World University Games in Gwangju, South Korea in the heats of the 50m Breaststroke. Murphy posted a qualification time of 27.92 and then went on to claim the gold medal in the Final in 27.83 seconds ahead of Stirling’s Ross Murdoch (28.11). Scotland’s Emma Crawford won the women’s event in 33.25 with Niamh Kilgallen (Claremorris) second in 33.63.
Ennis’ Bernard Cahill held on to claim gold from Andrew Meegan in the race of the night in Bangor. Cahill, who trains at Swim Ireland’s UL Sport Performance Centre held off a Meegan comeback clocking 4:01.25 with Meegan right behind in 4:01.31. Antoinette Neamt continued her impressive form claiming gold in the women’s event. Both Neamt (4:18.34) and silver medallist Rachel Bethel (4:21.64) posted EYOF qualification times.
UCD picked up their third Individual Gold of the day when Shani Stallard won the 200m Individual Medley. In a head to head finish, Stallard took the race in 2:18.90 ahead of Lisburn’s Bethany Carson (2:19.09). 13 year old Ellen Walsh of Templeogue SC won both the 200m Individual Medley (2:25.93) and the 100m Butterfly (1:03.89) B Finals within 10 minutes of each other qualifying in both for the European Youth Olympics in Georgia.
James Brown improved on his heat time from this morning to win the men’s 200m Individual Medley. The 17 year old from Ards came home in 2:07.83 ahead of this morning’s top seeded swimmer Andrew Moore (2:08.65) of Galway and Aer Lingus’ Ben Griffin (2:08.81).
Bethany Firth added to her 100m Freestyle Gold with a win in the 50m Freestyle. The Ards swimmer finished in a time of 26.37 touching just ahead of Larne’s Danielle Hill in 26.69. Firths teammate at the Ards Club Curtis Coulter won the men’s event in 23.26 holding off Jordan Sloan and Kieran McGuikan who both finished in 23.57.
Firth then went on to start the Ards 4x100m Medley Relay Team putting them in a commanding lead which they never lost winning in 4:26.15 while Coulter brought home the Ards men in the event to take gold in 3:57.89. Following Ards successes they were awarded the Dave McCullagh Memorial Trophy for Team of the Meet.
Irish swimmers return to action next at the Irish Open Swimming Championships from April 30th to May 3rd at the National Aquatic Centre in Dublin.
The article above is courtesy Swim Ireland