Swimming Teams Announced for Summer Internationals

May 17, 2022

Swim Ireland have named their teams for five summer 2022 international swim meets, with two more teams to be announced in the weeks ahead as all now prepare to navigate a busy summer of swimming and diving, with some additional events taking place in this summer due to COVID postponements from 2021.

Swim Ireland Performance have declared that their benchmark focus for the summer will be the LEN European Championships (50m) in Rome, Italy for their Republic of Ireland contingent, with the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England having a similar status for the Northern Irish athletes within their ranks, with a number of those bound for Birmingham also accepting selections to swim in Rome. Once Commonwealth Games Northern Ireland have ratified the nominations made to them for the Northern Ireland team and the Olympic Federation of Ireland have similarly ratified the nominations made to them for the EOC European Youth Olympic Festival in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia, both teams will be announced at a later date.

The European Championships in Rome will see a team of eighteen athletes race over the 7 days in what is one of the world’s most inspiring arenas, the Sette Colli stadium. Tokyo Olympic Finalist Mona McSharry will spearhead the team, most recently a medallist at the FINA World Championships in the 25m pool in Abu Dhabi at the end of 2021. Another Irish medallist at the Abu Dhabi World Championships, Ellen Walshe, will also turn her attentions to the 50m pool and look to further her impressive rise in the sport since relocating to the USA for her swimming back in September. Eight of the nine Irish Olympians from Tokyo 2021 will race in Rome, with Steven Beckerleg taking on the role of Head Coach for the male athletes within the team, whilst John Szaranek will undertake the equivalent Head Coach role for the female athletes. National Performance Director Jon Rudd will be Ireland’s Team Leader for the Championships.

For the junior element within the National Programme, the aspiring stars of the future will focus on the LEN European Junior Championships in Otopeni, Romania, with seven athletes making the cut for this competition, an impressive number when looking back at some of the compromised training environments that they faced during the recent lockdown periods. Molly Mayne brings experience and strong performances from previous European Junior events to the team, one that is smattered with young and exciting talent, with team Head Coach Michael McCarthy working under the Team Leader direction of National Performance Pathway Manager Andrew Reid whilst in Romania.

The 2022 FINA World Junior Championships in August were recently moved from Kazan, Russia to Lima, Peru, with a revised competition date that subsequently spanned into September. The three athletes that met Swim Ireland’s original Selection Policy for this competition (Molly Mayne, Liam Custer, and Grace Hodgins) will instead be provided with senior international caps on this occasion, adding youth and vigour to the team in Rome as the preferred option from within the Swim Ireland Performance team.

The reformatting of the FINA World Championships (50m) from May to June resulted in the majority of pre-selected athletes opting not to attend the competition as part of their preparations for the benchmark meets, but Ireland will be represented in swimming by Olympian Daniel Wiffen and sprint-specialist Calum Bain in Budapest, Hungary. The remaining contingent of athletes with Rome and/or Birmingham on their minds will utilise the Barcelona and Canet legs of the Mare Nostrum tour to aid their preparations.

For the first time in a long time, international Open Water swimming is back on the table for Ireland with two athletes competing at part of small teams to feature at the LEN European Junior Open Water Championships in Setubal, Portugal with one of the team members, Hazel Bentley, also meeting the selection criteria to compete in one of the rounds the LEN Open Water Cup. Head Coach on both occasions for the Irish team will be Nickey Burke from the Glenalbyn programme.

National Performance Director Jon Rudd said that there is much to look forward to this summer. “After a very successful Olympics and World short course Championships in 2021, it is time for our athletes to see how they can move our sport on yet again for Ireland and with so many events on the calendar this summer, we believe that we have struck an excellent balance across all of that which was available to us. The senior team for Rome is strong and we can look forward to something similarly exciting when the Northern Ireland team is announced for Birmingham. Our Juniors also have everything to look forward to and nothing to lose and we are confident that they will fare well in Romania against the best youngsters in Europe. It’s also very pleasing to see us back in international Open Water territory and we will use these selections to help us assess where our talent lies on the continental stage. We wish all of our athletes and their coaches the very best in their preparations over the weeks to come.”