DCU’s Swimming Society had an amazing run in the Irish Intervarsity Swimming Championships, placing second in overall, male and female categories with the male team just nine points behind UCD.
This is not only the best result for DCU swimming ever, but the closest any university has come to beating UCD since they launched their elite swimming programme and facility.
The DCU Swimming Society sent their biggest ever team of 35 athletes with gold medals for four of the male competitors and one of the female competitors.
Brendan Hyland, Ben Griffin, Cillian Colvin and David Prendergast won golds for the men with Clodagh Flood winning gold for the women.
Many more DCU Swimming Society Members won medals and made it to the finals.
Gold medal winner Brendan Hyland was confident in the teams ability and felt DCU could progress further and win the intervarsities next year.
The competition was a great learning experience for all of the DCU competitors, according to assistant coach Ben Griffin.
He said he was “really impressed by how our swimmers performed.”
He also hopes to lead DCU to first place next year claiming “all the guys are super motivated for next year.”
While he found it disappointing coming second to UCD, he also says he knows that DCU have the swimmers and the talent to improve on their results.
David Prendergast, another gold medalist from the event, felt especially proud to have come away from it successfully having done his undergrad in UCD.
“[The] Varsities this year showed true talent across the DCU swim team with people swimming personal best times and placing higher in their races than they would have anticipated.
“Returning to UCD where I did my undergrad and coming away with wins in both my individual events as well as both the men’s relays was brilliant to do for DCU.”
The other assistant coach, Cillian Colvin, is also hopeful for next year with the current talent in the club, while also adding that the relays were a major highlight of the competition with the men’s team getting gold in both events.
“There were a lot of great performances both from the swimmers competing for the first time and the ones who have competed in previous competitions,” Colvin noted.
“There’s always a great laugh and party afterwards.”
Hugh Farrell
Image Credit: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile