Performance Highlights  

An outstanding individual performance at the recent Irish Open Short Course Championships, saw Brendan Gibbons take the gold in the men's 1500 metres freestyle. Brendan was also awarded a perpetual cup for his brilliant endeavours.

This was a remarkable result for Brendan who at the tender age of 14, was competing against 18 and 19 year old athletes, with a number of these swimmers training 20 hours a week with the High Performance Squad in Dublin's, National Aquatic Centre.

On hand to witness this incredible result was Swim Irelands High Performance Director, Peter Banks, a coach not easily impressed having coached Brooke Bennett to double Olympic Gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Peter came down from the stands to congratulate both Brendan and his coach for their wonderful effort and personally invited Brendan to join him every Saturday morning to train with the Irish High Performance Team for a two and a half hour, Long Course intensive session. On his way to winning gold, Brendan smashed both the 800 metres Junior and Senior Connacht records (8min42sec) and the 1500 metres Junior and senior records(16min25sec). Brendan has another 4 years before he turns Senior and there is no doubt he will set a standard for future swimmers that may prove extremely difficult to beat. Brendan who was also the overall swimmer at the Summer Irish Age Groups for the third year running, has his sights firmly set on qualifying for the European Junior Championships in three years time and then hopes to push on from there by joining up with one of the High Performance centres on a full time basis and aim for the 2016 Olympic Games. Brendan also competed in the men's 200 and 400 metres men's freestyle and swam two superb swims with times of 2.00.60 and 4.13.16 . He just missed out on becoming the first Athlone swimmer to break 2 minutes for the 200 freestyle will have another chance in three weeks time at the Connacht Championships. Brendan is a great ambassador for the club and is the only swimmer not to have missed one training session this year and his commitment is an example to all.

Also a big congratulations to Siobhan Ryan, who became the eight swimmer from the club to qualify for the Connacht Squad. Siobhan swam a super swim in the Women's 100 metres Backstroke to record time of 1.10.13.

Emma Fahy made the final of the Women's 50 metres Freestyle, but Emma who was out sick for two weeks was a little outside her best but still managed to impress with a very fast 27.47 seconds.

13 year old Niamh Mcnamara had a personal best time in her 200 metres Freestyle with a superb time of 2min17 seconds.

Well done to all and good luck to all our Junior swimmers who will be competing in the Irish Minor Schools on the 5^th and 6^th of December.

Christmas Party 2009