While competing at the Swim Ireland Performance Meet late last month, Templeogue’s Ellen Walshe nabbed a FINA ‘A’ cut in the women’s 200m IM.
20-year-old Walshe produced a new lifetime best and 2IM Irish national record of 2:12.02. Her time overtook her previous PB of 2:15.01 from the nation’s Trials in April, but it also surpassed the previous Irish standard of 2:13.64 set by Grainne Murphy back in 2009.
This performance meet represented the last-chance Olympic qualifying opportunity for Irish elite swimmers, with only the upper echelons having been invited to race. Although Walshe’s time undercut the FINA ‘A’ standard of 2:12.56 needed for Tokyo, Swim Ireland’s own selection policy for the Tokyo Games reads that athletes had to be within 1.5% of the FINA ‘A’ standard at the Olympic Trials meet in April in order to qualify for the Olympics.
At the time, Swim Ireland said that Walshe’s swim ‘will be taken under consideration.’
Flash forward to today, however, and the organization has confirmed that Walshe will indeed be nominated for selection by Swim Ireland to the Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI).
Reads their statement, “The Swim Ireland Board, having considered the Swim Ireland Olympic Nomination Policy and taking into account the organisation’s ‘athlete first’ ethos, has confirmed that Ellen Walshe is eligible to be nominated by Swim Ireland to the Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI) to compete at the Olympic Games later this month. The OFI are on notice of this. Ellen Walshe will now be considered for nomination to the OFI by the Swim Ireland Selection Panel when they meet later this week.
“The Board of Swim Ireland wishes to congratulate all athletes who have been nominated for selection by Swim Ireland to the OFI and their coaches and families, and also wish to recognise the Performance Team for their hard work, dedication, and professionalism towards all Irish athletes throughout the qualification process.
Ellen Walshe was the sixth Irish swimmer to achieve a FINA ‘A’ standard time, joining Danielle Hill, Daniel Wiffen, Darragh Greene, Mona McSharry and Shane Ryan.
It is obviously the sensible thing to do, especially in the context of “athletes first” .
But the statement is carefully crafted and nuanced.
The Board of Swim Ireland has declared that Ellen is eligible.
But the next step is the Selection Committee meeting. Will they select her? I think they will but there might be an element of tension between the High Performance people and the people with their ear to the ground.
And the step beyond that is the OFI (usually) rubber stamping the selection.
It was one of those things we all come across. A decision is made…appealed….reversed….and the people who got it wrong in the first place tell us its proof… Read more »
How do you see it being resolved?
Ellen will go.
The relay…..I have a theory. But not sure its entirely ethical.
They withdraw athlete A, B or C from their main/qualified event, in order to piece together a bit part team and save some face?
A. Fina decides to allocate 17 relays for the Medley, and everything is wonderful.
B. guilt trip FINA into giving you four relay slots.
C. Use any invite MacMillan gets to swim the individual 200 free (I think he might be fifth in line for a place), get Quinn and Jordan as your relay swimmers, then hope Ryan is a decent relay swimmer.
D. Trick Siobhan Haughey into changing nationality… don’t know why I added that one…..
Not Ethical ???
I doubt others have such worries
Let’s be very clear, ‘Athlete First’ is a smoke screen for this organisation
If ‘Athlete First’ was actually a concern, then they would not have subjected this swimmer to such a Rollercoaster.
If ‘Athlete First’ was actually a concern, then PR sound bites would not have been more important than welfare of the MTR swimmers
If ‘Athlete First’ was actually a concern, then the 4X200 FTR ‘qualify, whatever the cost’, would not have left the swimmers wondering who (or if any) was actually going.
But not to worry…… It’s all been a ‘historic’ achievement after all ….
What will actually happen in my opinion is is that they will send Macmillan and McGeever as relay only swimmers and draft in Ryan to swim too. Final spot will be filled by Hyland. Rudd will do whatever possible to get him an invite for the 200m fly and will then also draft him in for the relay. This leaves Sloane and Quinn at home after they contributed in getting the relay to Tokyo. Absolute farce from Swim Ireland
The team was officially announced earlier.
The six individuals….Ryan, Greene, Wiffen, Hill, McSharry, Walshe.
The relay team is McGeever, Hyland, McMillan and Hyland.
Unfortunate for Sloane and Quinn but being part of the qualifying team is no guarantee of selection in the Tokyo team.
Rudd has his critics.
The “blazers” in SWim Ireland have their critics.
FINA have their critics.
And fans…..well they deserve a bit of criticism too sometimes. Maybe athletes also.
We can all be “hurlers on the ditch” as we say here “armchair quarterbacks” as others might say.
But its not a country that has multiple people who can do the entry standard and will never be in… Read more »
Relay(s)?