Published: Wednesday, 3rd March, 2010 5:00pm
Triple gold for Bower girls at Irish Schools Finals
Our Lady's Bower senior schools swim team of Naomi Mullins, Emma Fahy, Aoife and Eimear Corry have retained their Irish Senior Schools 4x50metre medley and freestyle titles at the Gus Healy Swimming Pool in Douglas, Cork.
The Westmeath Independent sports star award winners coasted to their fourth senior freestyle relay win in a row, having previously been successful in Belfast in 2007, Galway in 2008 - where they set the present Irish record - and in Dublin in 2009. Naomi, swimming a new personal best of 28.06 seconds, was followed by Aoife in 28.16secs, Eimear in a time of 30.01, and an excellent 27sec swim from Emma, and these performances saw the girls home as easy winners.
In one of the most exciting medley relay events seen at schools swimming, the Bower girls just overcame their arch rivals to touch in a time of 2.10.43 with Scoil Iognáid (Galway) in second place in 2.10.47.
This was their third win in the past four years at senior medley level. Naomi was first off, swimming the backcrawl in a superb time of 31 secs; Eimear and Aoife, swimming the breaststroke and butterfly legs, followed. Naomi, Eimear and Aoife had put in great swims but 'star of the show' in this event was experienced anchor leg swimmer Emma Fahy. She had been selected on the Irish Schools 2010 International squad (third International cap) minutes before entering the water a daunting four seconds behind her Galway rival. However 27.10 seconds later the Bower were the Irish Champions, having witnessed a sensational swim by Emma, who took the lead in the final metre. Before the medal presentation, Emma relived the thrill of those final metres. "It is fantastic to retain both titles - the sense of achievement is something else," she said.
Our Lady's Bower Junior Schools swim team of Niamh McNamara, Olwyn Sheridan, Caitlin Dully and Maedbh Hurst had earlier put in sterling performances in their Medley and Freestyle relays.
In the 4x50 Junior Freestyle Relay Niamh, Olwyn, Caitlin and Maedbh (all first years) continued the proud Bower tradition at this level. Niamh was first off the blocks in a time of 30.63, followed by Caitlin in 31.43, Olwyn 30.88 and Maedbh took the team home to howls of delight from the Athlone contingent in an excellent time of 28.87 secs.
It was a delight to see these young swimmers receive their first gold medals at Irish level and take the trophy back to the Bower for the first time since 2006.
In the Medley event the same quartet had to be satisfied with silver with excellent swims from Niamh in backcrawl, Olwyn in breaststroke, Caitlin in butterfly and Maedbh in freestyle.
The recent tradition of the Bower as a force in Irish Schools swimming began in 2004 with Rebecca Higgins, Jacqueline Mooney, Lisa Boland and Helen Kearney, and it looks set to continue for the foreseeable future. There were also impressive individual performances from all eight girls with Emma (silver in 100 freestyle) Aoife, Naomi, Niamh and Caitlin making the finals.
The plaudits must be given to Johnny Powell (Coach), Linda O'Halloran and John Joyce for their first class preparations of the squad for these championships. It is a testament to Mr Powell's coaching ability and dedication that he has succeeded for the eighth successive year in having at least one of his swimmers gain international schools recognition.
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