There was good news and bad news emerging from last week’s Celtic Tri-Nations meet in Dublin’s National Aquatics Center. This meet, which holds double duty as a tri-nations competition between Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, as well as the Dave McCullagh Memorial Meet.
The good news is that a pair of very young swimmers took down National Records very hard. The bad news is that both came up just shy of the FINA Automatic Qualifying marks. That still leaves Ireland with only two Olympic qualifiers: the unrelated Grainne and Barry Murphy – neither of whom were at this meet.
But the future is very bright in Ireland, and 2016 could be a good year (though swimmers still have until May 31 and at trip to the European Championships) to make the marks.
As for this meet, first Sycerika McMahon broke the 100 breaststroker record with a 1:08.79. That broke the mark held by another young swimmer, Fiona Doyle, from the Canadian Olympic Trials earlier this year.
McMahon turned 17 in April, and the two-time European Junior Champ is the country’s biggest hope for the future of Irish swimming. She’ll have another three-tenths of a second to go to put herself onto the Olympic Team.
She also scored a runner-up finish in the 200 IM in 2:16.08, which was right at her personal best. She lost in that race to Hannah Miley, who swam a 2:14.18 to win for Scotland. She also won the 400 IM (4:41.28) and 200 breaststroke (2:30.05).
The other Irish record that went down is at a true newcomer, and another 17-year old, Brendan Hyland. He dropped nearly three seconds to win the 200 fly and break the National Record with a 2:01.87. That broke the old record, set more than a decade ago by Colin Lowth, by nearly a second. He went five different lifetime bests at this meet, though none of the swims were nearly as impressive as this one. He also swam a 56.69 in the 100 fly.
In the meet standings, an extremely competitive meet ended with Ireland taking the title. Ireland scored 30,380 points to Scotland’s 30,248.
There was also a few guest appearances from some Spanish swimmers. Rafa Munoz won the men’s 100 fly in 54.07, and his countrymate Mercedes Peris won the 100 back in 1:02.24.