SWIMMING SHORT COURSE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS:AISHLING COONEY, who broke the Irish senior record in the semi-finals of the 100 metres breaststroke on Saturday, set another in the final and created history by becoming the first Irish woman to finish the event in under a minute on the final day of the Irish Short Course Nationals at the NAC in Dublin.
Cooney, who swam at the Beijing Olympics, produced a stunning last 25 metres to break the minute mark and take gold in 59.89 seconds.
It was an outstanding swim by the 19-year-old, who now heads to the European Short Course Championships in Istanbul next month in fine form.
Veteran Donal O’Neill, who made a return to competitive swimming earlier this year, showed that he too is in good form ahead of the Europeans by winning the 100m backstroke in a fast 53.55, just 0.18 shy of his Irish record.
Amazingly, O’Neill then went even faster for his club Trojan in the first leg of the 4x100m medley relay, where he set the 100m backstroke record in 53.39.
The Dublin club also won the Irish title in 3.45.60, smashing the seven-year-old Irish record by almost three seconds.
Fourteen-year-old Sycerika McMahon took her individual gold medal tally to six with a cracking swim in the final of the 400m individual medley, holding of the challenge of City of Belfast’s Alison Todd to win gold in an Irish junior record of 4.51.83.
The Leander teenager also won the 100m breaststroke final in another junior record of 1.09.68. Indeed, McMahon almost made it a seventh in the final of the 200 metres freestyle, but Cooney held off the young pretender to win her second individual gold in 2.00.51.
“Its great to see that Sycerika swims multiple events at this stage of her career,” said Irish high performance director Peter Banks.
“We have a lot of good young swimmers coming through, and we don’t want them to specialise at this point, because when they get fully developed and mature they will then be able to see what events are best suited to their physique.”
Cooney led off the ESB 4x100m medley relay squad, but it looked as if her club would have to be content to finish behind Aer Lingus, who dipped under the Irish senior record by nearly two seconds.
However, Aer Lingus were subsequently disqualified for an early change-over and ESB were awarded the gold.
Conor Leaney of Larne, an Ireland international, completed the freestyle clean-sweep, taking the 50m and 200m freestyle titles to add to the 100m gold he won on Saturday.
Michael Dawson of Ards, another of the Istanbul squad, was surprised in the final of the 100m breaststroke when he was beaten to the gold by Trojan’s Stephen O’Nolan.
