Templeogue swimmers shine on big summer programme

By Stephen Leonard

IT HAS been a tremendous summer so far for Templeogue Swim Club with a number of their young competitors serving up great results both in national and overseas competitions.

Most recently Cara Osing made the podium at the British Summer Championships to which she travelled as part of the Leinster squad.

She scooped silver in the 400m Front Crawl and emerged fourth in both the 100m and 200m FC and fifth in the 800m FC while carding four new personal best times in the process.

This year the club boasted its largest ever contingent in the Irish Age Group & Summer Open Champ-ionships, with 31 swimmers recording 76 PBs and 42 Top Ten finishes including six gold, nine silver and two bronze medal wins.

Among the highlights was the performance of Sean McNicholl who topped the podium three times, while Ellen Walshe did likewise in the 100m and 200m Butterfly and earned silver in the 400m Individual Medley.

Sean Kenny also scooped gold in the 200m Backstroke and silver in both the 200m BS and 400m FC while Osing took silver in the 200m FC and bronze in the 100m FC.

Walshe’s results followed hot on the heels of her impressive performances in the European Junior Championships in Hungary where she was part of the 12-strong Irish team.

It marked the first of three years in which the Templeogue star can compete at this level and she certainly made the most of opportunity card-ing a new PB in the 50BF.

What’s more, she swam a season’s best in 100BF and her fastest morning swims this year in 50BF, 100BF, 200BF and 200IM.

Next year she will look to build on this at the European Junior Champ-ionships in Israel and will be also be hoping to qualify for the World Junior Championships in Buda-pest in that same season.

Prior to that, Templeogue figured very strongly in the Irish Age Groups Division Two competition in Limerick from where their team of eight returned home with three gold, four silver and two bronze medals among 21 top-ten finishes.

First-place finishes were recorded by Templeogue’s Laura Gleeson (400m FC), Anna O’Gara (100m FC) and Kate Sweeney (200m BF).

Arianne Courtney made it a double silver in both the 100m and 200m BS while Conor Kenny bagged a 1500m FC silver and bronze in both the 400m FC and 400m IM.