Gala Report: Leinster/Connacht Long Course Youth & Senior Championships 2025

Date: Fri 16, Sat 17, Sun 18 May 2025 Location: National Aquatic Center, Dublin

The 2025 Connacht Championship took place was hosted by Swimming Leinster as a combined 15+ gala over three days. Connacht swimmers attended the NAC and raced for superfinal places, as well as individual Connacht and Leinster finals.

Highlights of the Event

• 14 Shark Swimmers represented club squads from Black to White
• An outstanding final day mixed  400m Medley Relay performance by Shark saw a time of 4.17.22 narrowly miss breaking a Connacht record. Shark were awarded the Connacht Gold medals and were the fastest relay overall by an impressive seven seconds. Well done Katie Kelly (backstroke), Niamh Connery (breaststroke), Killian Banks (butterfly) and Ewan Dickson (freestyle).

Swimmers' Performance – the 2025 Connacht Champions Listing

Shark performance over the three days was excellent with 18 Connacht GOLD medals coming home in the following events:

Black hat Olivia Currie had an impressive 4 PB’s out of 5 races this weekend, all on times that are already excellent. Katie Kelly picked up 6 Connacht Gold medals and 2 silver out of 8 individual events. Neysa Connolly was superb, with 4 golds, two silvers and 4 PB’s over a very busy weekend. Killian Banks added two silvers and a bronze to his 3 gold medals, as well as 3 PB’s. Eoin Connery took home 3 silver medals in the competitive 15-16 age group. Sophie Currie achieved 2 PB’s on already fast times, and Fia O’Donnell impressed with a silver and bronze and Ewan Dickson took home silver for 100 backcrawl and bronze in the incredibly competitive 50m Free with a time of 24.82!

Well done to Jack Murphy (white squad), Ide Turner, Noah Cunningham Flaherty, Milly Carlton Coyne and Grace Glynn (blue squad), all new to the 15 and over age group and showed hugely confident performances in the NAC, great to see you all there, and to hear Coach Daniel shouting so loud for you all!

A format of heats and finals over 3 days is always a test of endurance & determination, congrats to our Connacht Champions, and to all who made the weekend so much fun.

Coaches/Captains' Remarks

Thanks to Noel and Daniel for coaching all weekend.

Next Up

Thanks to all who make our club run smoothly, the volunteer team & committee behind the scenes do a lot of work. Many parents were involved in duties in the NAC over the weekend, much appreciated.

And next weekend we head to UL for the Connacht/Leinster Age Group Championships starting Friday May 23^rd, hopefully adding more age-group Connacht champions to the list! Well done all.