Helping to raise the bar for Galway’s swimmers

With the National Age Group Championships and Summer Open underway at the National Aquatic Centre in Dublin this week, Swim Ireland’s Club and Regional Support Officer in Connacht, Maree native Vincent Finn expects a number of West of Ireland swimmers to be among the medals.

In recent years, the progress made by local swimmers – due to the input of High Performance coach Pearse McGuigan and the local clubs – has been notable while the appointment of Finn as Support Officer in the region has underlined Swim Ireland’s commitment to developing the sport in the province.

These are exciting times for Galway athletes with no less than 75 from the city and county to compete at the National Championships and with over 900 swimmers from more than 100 clubs participating overall, this is set to be the biggest Championships Swim Ireland has ever catered for.

In all, 3,762 individual and 151 relay swims will take place over the five days – so offering Galway’s elite the opportunity to not only test themselves against the best in this country but also against swimmers from South Africa, Singapore, Oman, Dubai, Italy, England and Scotland.

They should not look out of place either, especially given the likes of Galway Swim Club duo Bryan O’Sullivan and Andrew Moore have already been selected to represent Ireland at the Canadian Age Group Championships in Winnipeg later this month.

They are just two of a number of local swimmers stepping up to the next level and Finn, appointed as Swim Ireland’s Club and Regional Support Officer in the province last year, praises the contribution of Connacht’s High Performance Coach McGuigan and, indeed, the standard of coaching in the local clubs.

“Swim Ireland have put a strategic plan in place for 2013 to 2016 and the main focus of the plan is to develop swimming, not just on a competitive basis but on retaining swimmers in the sport as well because there is a large fall-off in the 13 to 14 years age bracket,” notes Finn.

“In some cases, it is because other sports and other interests take over but there are times when swimming just might not cater for those who do not want to compete at the highest level. That is being addressed by Swim Ireland and by a lot of clubs at the moment.”

For Finn’s part, his role is to be “a visible point of contact on the ground” for the 17 clubs, including water polo clubs, in the region. These include clubs in Athlone and Longford.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.