Ellen makes a splash with two medals at World Cup

TEMPLEOGUE swimmer Ellen Walshe won two medals last weekend at the first leg of the Aquatics World Cup held in Indiana.

The event kicked off Walshe’s 2025 short course (25m pool) season.

The first of these came on Friday evening as Walshe competed in the 200m Butterfly and claimed Bronze coming in with a time of 2:05.07 which broke the previous 200m Butterfly Irish record set by Michelle Smith back in 1997 when she managed a time of 2:07.04.

Walshe has been breaking Irish records non stop over the last year or so now, breaking nine Irish short course records and six long course records (50m pool) last season.

USA athlete Regan Smith would take gold in the event and set a new World Cup record with a blistering time of 2:00.28 while fellow American Alex Shackell came second beating Walshe by just over two seconds with a time of 2:02.51.

Walshe would go one better and win a silver medal the following evening on Saturday night as she won a silver medal in the 400m Individual Medley.

The event sees participants race in all four different swimming categories, freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly.

Previously an Olympic finalist in the 400m, Walshe looked to be in medal contention throughout the race.

It would be her freestyle portion of the race which would be most impressive being the joint fastest in the field with a time of 1:01.32.

She would secure her silver medal with an overall time of 4:28.47. Only Abbie Wood of Great Britain would come in faster just pipping Walshe to first place with a time of 4:27.14

The final day of racing in Indiana saw Walshe double up in the 100m Butterfly and 200m Individual Medley where she finished sixth place in both with times of 57.27 and 2:07.31 respectively.