Swim Ireland Announce Teams for Summer Internationals; Twenty Selected for European Aquatics Championships

Swim Ireland have confirmed this week four teams who will travel into Europe to compete in the forthcoming European Aquatics […]

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Swim Ireland have confirmed this week four teams who will travel into Europe to compete in the forthcoming European Aquatics Championships (both swimming and diving) in Belgrade, Serbia during June, the European Junior Swimming Championships in Vilnius, Lithuania during July and the European Junior Open Water Championships in Vienna, Austria, taking place the following week.

With a team of 18 swimmers and 2 divers confirmed for Belgrade, some athletes will utilise an individualised section of the meet to prepare for the Olympic Games, whilst for the majority, it will be their summer benchmark international meet and a chance to bring a fine season and an excellent Trials to a culmination.

With Olympic qualifiers Daniel Wiffen, Mona McSharry, Ellen Walshe and Tom Fannon opting for alternative preparation plans into the Games, it will be down to Danielle Hill as the sole remaining Olympic individual event qualifier to tune up for Paris in Belgrade, with a number of other Olympic prospects looking for relay call-ups also choosing to be Serbia-bound in the month before the Games. Diver Jake Passmore will also bypass the event whilst he awaits to hear whether he gets a nod from World Aquatics to compete in Paris too.

In the swimming events, familiar names in Irish senior swimming such as Shane Ryan, Darragh Greene, Conor Ferguson and Max McCusker will be joined in Belgrade by the next generation of up and coming stars – Nathan Wiffen, Ellie McCartney and Evan Bailey to name but three of the exciting prospects developing season on season. With seven days of racing on offer in a specially prepared outdoor venue, the Irish contingent will already need to be focused, as the Championships take place just short of three weeks after the Trials that saw them gain selection to the event. For divers Clare Cryan and Ciara McGing, it was the World Championships in Doha in February that saw them last represent Ireland, with both looking to build on the Finalist positions that they achieved at the last iteration of this Championships in 2022.

With the Paris Olympic Games so close, it also means that the LA Games in 2028 will become a full-on focus within a matter of months and the European Junior Championships, both pool and open water, offer those that have 2028 in their sights a chance to make a statement of intent for the cycle ahead. Amongst the 12 pool athletes and 8 open water athletes, it is John Shortt and Grace Davison who jointly lead the pack in this respect, both having benefited from senior World Championship experience in recent times; Denis O’Brien has the status of being the only name to feature in both events, taking his pool distance swimming prowess also into the open water arena.

Andrew Reid, Swim Ireland’s Head of Performance Pathways & Operations will take up the role of Team Leader for both Belgrade and Vilnius. Commenting on the selections, he said, “We’ll all get caught up in the Olympic Games soon enough, and rightfully so, but there’s a great deal of Irish excitement to enjoy before that as we venture into other parts of Europe first; there’s 38 athletes named across these four teams – as well as a chance to see Daniel Wiffen, Ellen Walshe and Tom Fannon and others race at the Sette Colli Trophy in Rome in the same week as the Belgrade Championships. In the case of the trip to Serbia, when you bring experience and youth together, you get an exciting dynamic within a team and we can all look forward to these flights into Belgrade, Rome, Vienna and Vilnius not just setting us up for now, with Paris ahead, but also for a great future for Irish swimming, as this programme continues to build and grow each and every year”.

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