The Ards Blair Mayne Wellbeing and Leisure Complex set the perfect location for Larne to compete in their Division 3B Aquasprint Final against Lecale and Olympia Swimming Club.
Larne could not have started better, achieving 1st place points for all Medley Relay events.
This pathed the way for excellent performances in the individual events with Larne earning 77 points on Backstroke, 65 points on Breaststroke, 71 points on Butterfly and 69 points on Freestyle.
Larne finished the event the same way as they started – achieving 1st place points for all Freestyle Relay events.
The Aquasprint Final concluded with the final scores being 190 points to Olympia, 280 points to Lecale and 370 points to Larne.
A massive congratulations to all swimmers from all 3 clubs and a special thank youto all of the organisers and volunteers for their commitment.
Banbridge at South Lakes was the host for the last long course gala before Division 2 and Division 1 summer nationals. This was the last chance for swimmers across our squads to obtain qualification times. As expected this gala was over subscribed and very busy.
In the Development Squad, Marco Allen, Alex Rea, Alexander Murphy, and Ethan Smyth had fantastic swims, lots of PB’s, very good racing skills on display. Marco obtained an additional Division 2 swim, followed with a 3rd place medal in the 50 Breaststroke.
Not to be outdone, Annabella Cole, Megan O’Mahony and Olivia Beggs swam some amazing races against much older, experienced competition. There were PB’s across the board, with Annabella Cole taking 1st in the 50m Breaststroke and 2nd in the 50m Butterfly.
Our Junior National and Senior Sqaud swimmers were at the event to hone their racing skills, and to obtain additional swims at the summer nationals.
For the Junior National swimmers, Asha McIlroy, Eve McKeown and Owen Wasnidge all swam well with Asha getting a PB in the 50m Breaststroke.
In the National Sqaud, Sophie Doran, Grace Coyle, Daniel Beggs, Maya Niblock and Charlie Morriss were very strong across a number of events. Sophie posted a PB in the 100m Freestyle, followed by Daniel Beggs in the same event. Charlie Morriss, placed 1st in the 100 Freestyle and 3rd in the 50m Breaststroke both with PB’s.
Well done to all swimmers, we now look forward to supporting our swimmers at European Juniors, Commonwealth and European Games, and Irish Summer Nationals.
It was a busy weekend for #teamlarne athletes with three different meets happening and our athletes competing all over Europe.
Aquasprint
The youngest members of our club took part in their next Aquasprint meet. This time racing against Leander Swimming Club.
With the focus of these meets on short fast swimming and lots of noise and enjoyment the result is always a secondary issue.
It is fantastic to see that the junior swimmers love to swim so much and are so supportive of each other.
The future of our club is in safe hands
Glasgow International
Kaitlyn McCaw travelled to Scotland to take part in the Glasgow International Meet in Tollcross pool.
This was Kaitlyn’s 1st representative meet and comes in the middle of a heavy block of work both in the pool and finishing her dissertation for Uni.
Kaitlyn raced 4 events and qualified for 2nd swims in all 4 making for 8 swims in 3 days. The final of the 50 fly was undoubtedly the highlight
Kaitlyn is proof that if you love swimming, there is no reason why you cannot swim past school. Having taken 6 years out of the sport to concentrate on studies Kaitlyn now has a big summer ahead of her.
Mare Nostrum
Last but by no means least, Danielle travelled to Barcelona to race on Wednesday and Thursday and then on to Canet o race Saturday and Sunday
The Mare Nostrum tour is the best athletes from around the world racing head to head over 3 meets in 8 days.
Once again D was swimming through these meets with her eyes set on a much bigger summer.
Contesting in 4 events at each meet and making finals in them all ment that Danielle raced 16 swims in 5 days. #tough
If Kaitlyn is proof that if you don’t have to stop swimming at the end of school, Danielle if the role model that hard work will always pay off
Larne was back racing again, with the junior end of the club. Swimmers from the Academy, Development, Competitive and Junior National sqauds were competitive swimming at the Lisburn Christmas meet.
This meet was hosted in Lisburn, and was very well supported. With less than two weeks until Christmas, the excitement of racing and wearing our new club tshirts meant a very exciting meet was in store.
A huge congratulations to every swimmer as they all posted Personal Best times in every event!
Iona Tweed, Maddy McDowell and Lucy Maxwell got us underway in the 25m Backstroke, with all 3 girls dropping over +10 second PB’s, along with Megan O’Mahony who placed 4th. Annabella Cole took Gold, placing 1st in her age group going sub 20 seconds.
The boys were up next, Connor Sidwell, Oliver Niblock, Issac Lee and Issac Prince all firing off PB’s. Oliver placed 15th overall in a very strong and competitive field.
In the breaststroke, Annabella Cole placed forth missing out on a medal by 3 hundredths of a second. The boys again were up against very tough opposition but all had very good PB’s which will please their coaches.
Oliver Niblock and Isaac Lee showed some good skills in the 25m butterfly. Maddy McDowell placed 15th in the 11 year old category racing for the first time, very impressive along with Lucy Maxwell and Iona Tweed who placed very respectfully. Topping off the girls were Megan O’Mahony in 7th and Annabella Cole taking silver just missing out top spot.
The 25m Freestyle events were hottly contested with some huge PB’s from Maddy McDowell, Iona Tweed, Isaac Lee and Conor Sidwell. Oliver Niblock, placed 20th, with Isaac Prince finishing 7th , followed by Megan O’Mahony taking 3rd and Annabella Cole sharing 1st with a joint equal time of 15.90. Session two, started with a bang when Louisa Humphries ripped out a 100m backstroke placing 1st with the fastest time of the entire day across all age groups narrowly missing out on an Irish Short Course qualification time. Alex Rea and Owen Wasnidge placed within the top 20 of their age groups demonstrating good skills and big PB’s.
The boys 50 butterfly produced 3 top 20 swims from Keegan McLoughlin, Ciaran Laverty and Owen Wasnidge, narrowly, missing out on a top 10 place by 3 tenths.
The breaststroke was another hottly contested event, which saw Marco Allen place 6th, Evan Houston 10th, Ethan Smyth 15th , Ciaran Laverty 22nd , and Owen Wasnidge 24th with Asha McIllroy swimming a very good race placing 27th out of 46.
In the 50m Freestyle, Mia Grills placed with the top 20, along with Marco Allen, Ryan Cleland and Oliver Smyth – who narrowly missed out on a sub 30 second swim.
The final session got underway with the 50m backstroke with Mia Grills placing 16th, and Alex Rea placing 7th with an 8 second PB.
Mia and Asha were back in action in the 100m Freestyle, with the girls separated by only 3 tenths in a very good race. In the boys event Dawson Taylor placed 20th with a very good PB, followed by massive PB’s from Owen Wasnidge (-31.22), Ciaran Laverty (-28.14) and Evan Houston (-25.08).
The last two events saw Mia Grills and Asha McIllroy go head to head in the 50m breaststroke with Asha taking 13th and Mia 14th split by 0.98 seconds. Joining the girls were Evan Houston in 6th, Ethan Smyth in 11th, Ryan Cleland 14th and Owen Wasnidge 15th within their age groups.
It is fantastic to see our members getting back into the racing pool again and the coaches where all delighted with how everyone performed. The skills, effort, commitment and determination was evident.
It will be great to see how far you all can go when we race again after Christmas.
Back to training and working on the skills that the coaches are teaching you so that next time we can see event better swimming
After the under 13s last weekend, it was the tunr of the senior club to get back to some racing this weekend.
#Teamlarne turned up in Lisburn with 29 swimmers contesting 95 individual and 15 relays. This series of meets is a re-brand of the qualifying meets from BC (before covid). The addition of the sprint relays added to the atmosphere and we await the results from the points scoring system borrowed from the ISL to see how we fared as a club.
For the senior club this meet fell in the middle of week 9 of the cycle, a 7th 40000+ week, and was used as part of the weeks training with no regen or rest.
The results file is attached below so I wont go through the results here other than to highlight a few key points of note.
Of the 110 individual times posted 65% were PBs, 20% were new times.
Congratulations to Pheobe, Kate, Mia, Oliver and Owen who were racing at this level for the 1st time and did a great job.
Thomas Leggett deserves a special mention for his 100 Free winning in a time of 52.4 as does Evan Coulter for his 1st sub 60 100 IM.
Morgan Berryman competing for Larne for the 1st time raced 11 times (a 25 for every year of his life 😁 he is very Oooooold)
Aspiring to Inspire
Ele Donegan recorded her 1st Club record in the 200 Fly.
The relays were dominant across all events and point to a very exciting future for our club as we move towards the Ulsters and Irish with 4 more swimmers to add to this pool.
This meet was also a 1st for Paul Morriss and Danielle for Larne in a coaching capacity and it was great to have some company on poolside for a change.
Most significant was the obvious joy we displayed just being able to race again as a team, our support for each other (by far the most vocal on the day) was exceptional and as the head coach was great to see.
The day finished with the club having 24 qualifiers for Ulsters and 17 for Irish SC.
TeamLarne 