SWIMMING NCSA All-Star Team Set to Race in Dublin

Swim Ireland announced today that the USA's National Club Swimming Association (NCSA) will send a NCSA Junior National All Star Team of 26 males and 26 females to compete in the Irish Long Course Swimming Championships, which take place in the National Aquatic Centre, Dublin from April 29 - May 2, 2010. The All-Star Team will be selected based upon the results from the NCSA Junior National Swimming Championships, March 16-27 in Orlando, Florida.

The NCSA All-Star Team, accompanied by 8 coaches along with support staff and a press team will arrive in Dublin on Sunday, April 25 to compete in the 4-day Irish meet. The NCSA is a private organisation for professionally coached swimming clubs and professional club swimming coaches in the United States of America. Club Members must have a minimum of 50 swimmers, 18 years old and under and must also be independent of direct program controls of a college/university. Club Members must be coached by a Coaching Member of the National Club Swimming Association and only the highly professionally prepared or exceptionally experienced coaches are accepted as coaching members of the NCSA.

"This is a really exciting opportunity for Irish swimmers to step up to the challenge of competing against some of the world's top junior athletes, right here on their doorstep in the NAC. The NCSA Junior National All-Star Program was developed to provide top Junior swimmers in the USA with the opportunity to travel and compete Internationally and we are delighted that they've chosen our Long Course Championships as their International event this year."

This year's Irish Long Course Championships is one of two domestic qualifying competitions for Irish swimmers, to gain qualification for either the European Junior Championships, European Senior Championships or World Short Course Championships travelling teams - who will all compete this summer Internationally. The second qualification meet was the Dave Mc Cullagh Memorial Gala (held at UL, Limerick last month). Approximately 300 Irish and International swimmers will compete in the NAC, including a team from Loughborough University and Stirling swimming club.

NCSA President Kevin Milak also commented "We are extremely proud to be able to offer this great experience and opportunity to some of the USA's best 18 and under, Junior Elite swimmers. We really appreciate the help that Irish Swimming is giving us in executing this effort; Peter Banks, High Performance Director and Robert Mooney, High Performance Administrator."