Swim Ireland’s Irish Open Swimming Championships start next Tuesday (19th April) at the Sport Ireland National Aquatic Centre in Dublin, the first such Championships since 2019.
The 5-day event will see almost four hundred swimmers from seventy-four clubs compete for national titles in thirty-four individual events and places on seven Irish National Teams.
The Open will be the final opportunity for swimmers to post consideration times for this summer’s international events including the World and European Championships, World Para Swimming Championships, Commonwealth Games (Northern Ireland), World and European Junior Championships and the European Youth Olympic Festival.
Tokyo Olympians and Paralympians will highlight the meet. Paralympic medallists Ellen Keane and Nicole Turner, and finalists Roisin NiRiain and Barry McClements are already under consideration for the World Para Swimming Championships in Portugal in June having met the minimum qualification standards. Danielle Hill, Darragh Greene, Jack McMillan and Finn McGeever will all compete, while Shane Ryan continues to recover from shoulder surgery, and Mona McSharry, Ellen Walshe, Daniel Wiffen and Brendan Hyland remain at their training bases abroad. All nine swimming Olympians have been pre-selected for the European Championships in Italy in August with Hill, Wiffen and McMillan also selected for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in July.
Speaking ahead of the event Swim Ireland National Performance Director Jon Rudd commented, “It’s absolutely wonderful to be back with an Irish Open Championships in Dublin after what seems like so long. All our 2021 Olympians are pre-selected for the senior benchmark competitions this summer so a number of them will choose not to be present this time of asking. However, there will certainly be plenty of exciting head-to-head challenges across the course of the week with numerous junior and senior National Team places very much up for grabs. It’s an exciting time to get the nation back racing on home soil in front of a crowd – and I’d suggest that it’s one not to be missed for any lover of the sport”
International Swimming Events Summer 2022
2022 LEN European Championships (50m), Rome, Italy, August 11th – 17th
(Senior summer benchmark meet for Republic of Ireland athletes)
Pre-selected athletes – Danielle Hill, Mona McSharry, Ellen Walshe, Darragh Greene, Brendan Hyland, Finn McGeever, Jack McMillan, Shane Ryan, Daniel Wiffen.
Diving consideration standard met: Clare Cryan, Ciara McGing
2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, July 29th – August 3rd
(Senior summer benchmark meet for Northern Ireland athletes)
Pre-selected athletes – Danielle Hill, Daniel Wiffen, Jack McMillan, Tanya Watson (Diving)
2022 FINA World Championships (50m) in Budapest, Hungary, June 18th – July 3rd
(Used as preparation meet only for swimming, athletes may not attend)
Pre-qualified athletes – Daniel Wiffen, Jack McMillan, Mona McSharry. Ellen Walshe, Calum Bain, Shane Ryan, Danielle Hill
Diving consideration standard met: Clare Cryan, Ciara McGing
2022 World Para Swimming Championships in Madeira, Portugal, June 18th – 22nd
Minimum Qualification Standard met: Ellen Keane, Nicole Turner, Roisin NiRiain, Barry McClements, Amy Sheridan
2022 LEN European Junior Championships in Otopeni, Romania, July 5th – 10th
(The junior summer benchmark meet for athletes of this age banding)
2022 EOC European Youth Olympic Festival in Banka Bystrica, Slovakia, July 25th – 29th
(The junior summer benchmark meet for athletes of this age banding)
2022 FINA World Junior Championships in Lima, Peru, August 30th – September 4th
NOTE: In 2019, we introduced the notion of ‘pre-validation’ for our blue-chip senior international meet of the season. With COVID leaving us with a degree of uncertainty after Tokyo, we pre-selected Olympic athletes for European Championships (Rome) and/or Commonwealth Games (Birmingham), particularly as the World Championships in May at that time made the calendar very congested. This World Championships in Fukuoka was subsequently cancelled and then later re-instated by FINA in June in Budapest, and as such will not be a benchmark meet for us this season. Athletes can add themselves to the roster for Birmingham and Rome at this competition, and indeed for Budapest if they wish to utilise it as a preparation meet for later in the summer.
 at the Sport Ireland National Aquatic Centre in Dublin, the first such Championships since 2019.){kind=link}