Season best performances from Sligo swimmers in Connacht
A group of 18 swimmers from County Sligo Swimming Club produced their season best swims as they competed at the recent Swim Connacht Regional Short Course Championships 2019 in Castlebar.
The Championships were an Open competition (i.e. no age groups) and included swimmers ranging from 2019 FINA World Championships athlete Robbie Powell from Athlone, to those competing at this level for the first time.
A fantastic team atmosphere was on display across the whole weekend as the Sligo athletes stepped up and produced season best swims and medal winning performances. The Sligo team returned with a haul of 20 medals in total (15 individual medals and 5 relay medals); 4 gold, 8 silver and 8 bronze, to finish in joint 3rd position in the medals table out of a total 16 swimming clubs that competed at the competition.
Sligo’s top performer was 14-year-old Ronan Kilcoyne, who despite his young age, claimed four individual gold medals and one bronze. Ronan is now the Connacht SC champion in 1500m free, 400m IM, 100m breast and 200m butterfly. His bronze medal came in the 200m IM. Anthony Maher also had a very productive few days to win four Connacht medals. Anthony won silver in both the 100m and 200m breast and bronze medals in 50m breast and 100m IM. Danielle Farrell claimed two silver medals, in the 50m and 100m freestyle finals. Danielle was 2nd placed female in the Mixed 800m free event, in a new PB time of 9:25.50. She also just missed out on a few other medals, finishing in 4th position in both the 200m back and 200m free.
Wiktoria Weinert won silver in 200m breast and a bronze in 200m butterfly. Carrie McDaid was a bronze medal winner in 50m butterfly. Paddy McPartlan had some great swims and was unlucky not to have claimed any individual medals, finishing in 4th position in both the 50m and 100m butterfly finals.
15-year-old Callum Rowley Hopkins was delighted when he broke the minute for the first time in the 100m free, in a time of 59.99.
There were also lots of other great performances by the Sligo swimmers, with most swimmers getting new personal bests in a lot of their events, including in particular the two youngest members of the Sligo team, 12 year olds Daniel Rattigan and Darragh Gilmartin who achieved PBs in all their events.
The County Sligo Swimming team also competed in six relays, winning regional medals in five of them.
The most exciting of these races was the final of the Mixed 200m medley relay, where the Sligo team of Carrie McDaid, Anthony Maher, Paddy McPartlan and Danielle Farrell finished in second place in 1:59.04, just a second behind Athlone Swimming Club, and just 0.31 seconds ahead of third place finishers Shark SC from Galway.
Sligo also grabbed silver in the Female 200m freestyle relay with Carrie McDaid, Alice McPartlan, Wiktoria Weinert and Danielle Farrell.
The team won bronze in three relays; the Male 200m medley relay (Ronan Kilcoyne, Anthony Maher, Paddy McPartlan and Killian
Langton), the Female 200m medley relay (Danielle Farrell, Wiktoria Weinert, Alice McPartlan and Rachel McManus), and the Mixed 200m freestyle relay, with Anthony Maher, Paddy McPartlan, Danielle Farrell and Alice McPartlan.
Sligo head coach Eduardo Santos was very pleased with the performances at one of the premier events in the Connacht swimming calendar.
Next up for seven of the club’s senior swimmers is the Irish Short Course Championships at the NAC in Dublin from 12th to 15th December.
The athletes representing Sligo are Ronan Kilcoyne, Ronan Anderson, Danielle Farrell, Wiktoria Weinert, Carrie McDaid, Jade Murphy and Paddy McPartlan.