UCD Swimming closes the year with an Irish record, World student games qualifications and 2 National titles.

UCD Swimming bookended the Swimming year with national titles. Following on from the men’s 4x100 Freestyle Team Relay which took Gold at the Irish Short Course Nationals in November, Aisling Cooney and Niamh O’ Sullivan finished the season with a Gold Medal each and a National Title in the 100m Backcrawl and 800m Freestyle respectively.

Cooney swam an Irish Record of 1.01.76 in the 100m Backcrawl final, shaving .11 off her own previous record which stood before the meet. She saw of fellow Olympian Melanie Nocher , from Ards, in the process while Chelsea Wilson from Eniskillen took 3^rd. Aisling also featured in the final of the200m Backcrawl, this time coming 2^nd to Nocher.

The Irish Record of 1.01.76 that Cooney achieved was .06 off a second outside the Qualifying Times for World Championships in Rome this summer. But the time, however, was enough for Aisling to swim in the World Student Games this year in China.

Niamh O’Sullivan struck gold in the 800m Freestyle in a time of 8m 54s. She saw off the challenge of a resurgent Nuala Murphy from Trojan and Mary-Kate McDowell from Bangor.

Niamh also appeared on the podium twice more for UCD – she got a silver medal in the 400m Frontcrawl and a bronze medal in the 200m Frontcrawl. Niamh will also feature in the Irish World Student Games this year.

Both swimmers are awaiting the announcement of the female relay teams which will travel to Rome for the World Championships this summer.

UCD Swim Team Coach, Earl McCarthy had this to say

“This competition really shows how far the team has come in the past few months.  Aside from Aisling’s achievements at this competition, she has done well at International Level - finishing 9^th at the European Championships in December 2010, missing the final by only .03 of a second. She is also now only 1 second off the Qualifying Time for London 2012. Niamh also continues to swim well and both ladies have qualified for the World Student Games.”

There was also success on the male side of the team. The men’s 4x100 Medley Relay Team of Conor Hillick, Philip Meagher, David Cooney and Niall McCauley took silver in a time of 4.15.72, while Bangor took home the gold medal. Ards took bronze. This cements the UCD Men’s Relay position as one of the best in the country. They’ve achieved podium positions now at both National Swimming Championships, and also at the Irish Intervarisity Championships.

Overall, this event was really represents the massive progress UCD Swimming has made in recent years. Under the stewardship of Earl McCarthy the team has gone from being a team who could not reach the podium at Intervarsities to a team who has this year won everything there is to win in Irish University Swimming (Swimming Intervarsities (Male, Female and Overall) and the CUSAI Swimming League (which they competed in and were unbeaten in doing so). Not only was the team’s performance in the Universities circuit outstanding, the team also managed to close the year with a more than respectable record in the Irish Swimming Calendar.