SWIMMING Cooney Wins Swimmer of the Meet Ahead of European Bid

Niamh O'Sullivan opened the final session of the Irish Short Course Swimming Championships in Leisureland, Galway with a cracking winning 400m Individual Medley performance (4.50.91). Sullivan, a UCD student from Kerry has in the last year changed her training regime and now bases her training in Dublin at Swim Ireland's NAC Performance Centre. A distance freestyle specialist, Sullivan also won the 200m butterfly final (2.17.74) ahead of Lisburn's Bethany Carson (2.18.84).

An interesting race ensued in the men's 400m Individual Medley final when the lead at the half way mark - Galway's Cian Duffy - exited the race. Youth Olympian and Castlebar swimmer Nicholas Quinn then took over the lead from the side lane and built momentum on the breaststroke and freestyle legs, to win the title in 4.32.98. Bernard Cahill from Ennis finished in second place (4.37.03) and William Ensor of Westwood came in third (4.37.03). Minutes later, Quinn claimed his second gold medal of the night in the 100m breaststroke, winning it in 1.05.55.

Conor Leaney completed the double - 100m and 200m freestyle, winning both events. Freestyle specialist Bethany Carson was also busy in the pool, claiming gold in the 100m freestyle and silver in the 200m butterfly.

Local girl Dairne Ryan had the crowd of their feet for the women's 200m freestyle final. Clocking a 2.03.60 in the prelims earlier today, Ryan who now trains in Dublin at the NAC-Performance Centre didn't manage to go on to better that time in the finals (2.04.50) but none-the-less had the locals roaring.

Other individual winners included Catrina English (100m breaststroke), Shauna O'Brien (100m butterfly) and David Graham (100m & 200m butterfly). Overall winner of the meet was Olympian Aisling Cooney and she was presented with the Larry Williamson Trophy, by his daughter Mary Kelly and brother Brian Williamson.

Ireland's squad for the short course European Championships next week in Eindhoven, Holland is a small team of 3 women - Grainne Murphy, Melanie Nocher and Aisling Coooney.