A group of thirty-one swimmers from the Castlebar Swimming Club headed off bright and early to Athlone to compete in the Inaugural Invitation Meet at the superbly appointed Regional Sports Centre on Saturday 1st March 2003.
In a very competitive meet a number of excellent swims were recorded by the swimmers, with several personal bests and a number of National Division 2 qualifying times achieved. The meet covered all four individual strokes and freestyle team relays, with each swimmer allowed to swim two strokes of their choice.

Gold for Zoe !
Performance of the day for Castlebar came from Zoe Davis who won her final in the Girls U/15 100 m SC Butterfly with a time of 1.14.26. The following swimmers took Silver Medals: Anthony English Boys U/15 100m Breaststroke Sarah Caulfield Girls U/15 100m Breaststroke Darragh Quinn Boys Snr 100m Breaststroke Nicholas Quinn Boys U/11 100m Butterfly Annie McCormack Girls U/11 100m Freestyle Laura Keaveny Girls U/15 100m Freestyle Colm Garrick Boys Snr 100m Freestyle

Another performance of note was that of young Annie McCormack who swam 1.21.51 in the heats and then followed this up with a superb 1.17.50 in the final to be just pipped for gold medal position in a very close finish. Well done Annie!

The following swimmers took Bronze Medals Jimmy Wiseman Boys Snr 100m Breaststroke Jill McGee Girls Snr 100m Breaststroke Brian Moran Boys Snr 100m Backstroke Conal Joyce Boys U/13 100m Butterfly Natalie Bourke Girls U/13 100m Butterfly Sarah Wiseman Girls Snr 100m Butterfly
The following swimmers swam well to qualify for finals in their respective events James Sweeney 4th Boys U/13 100m Breaststroke Aisling Bourke 5th Girls U/13 100m Breaststroke Natalie Bourke 4th Girls U/13 100m Breaststroke Fergus Sweeney 5th Boys U/15 100m Breaststroke Colm Garrick 5th Boys Snr 100m Breaststroke Brian McDonagh 6th Snr 100m Breaststroke Doireann Dever 5th Girls Snr 100m Breaststroke Nicholas Quinn 4th Boys U/11 100m Backstroke Ciara McGowan 5th Girls Snr 100m Backstroke Aisling Bourke 4th Girls U/13 100m Butterfly Fionnuala Quinn 5th Girls U/13 100m Butterfly Juliet Connaughton 6th Girls U/13 100m Butterfly Elaine Joyce 5th Girls U/15 100m Butterfly Patrick Wiseman 4th Boys U/13 100m Freestyle Darragh Quinn 4th Boys Snr 100m Freestyle Jimmy Wiseman 5th Boys Snr 100m Freestyle.

In addition to the above fine swims a number of swimmers achieved Division 2 times, which qualifies them to swim in National competition scheduled for July in Ennis. Emma Hynes U/13 100m Backstroke Conal Joyce U/13100m Butterfly Patrick Wiseman U/13100m Freestyle Fergus Sweeney U/15 100m Breaststroke Fionnuala Quinn U/13 100m Butterfly Natalie Bourke U/13 100m Butterfly Aisling Bourke U/13 100m Breaststroke Well done to these swimmers, for a Division 2 time is not easy to achieve.

Relay Teams come close …
A number of good team swims were turned in, however none were good enough to scoop gold on the day…. Boys U/13 4 x 50m Freestyle team Conal Joyce, Nicholas Quinn, Patrick Wiseman and James Sweeney came 3rd Girls U/13 4 x 50m Freestyle team Natalie Bourke, Aisling Bourke, Fionnuala Quinn and Katie Touhy came 3rd … Girls U/15 4 x 50m Freestyle team of Laura Keavney, Zoe Davis, Sarah Caulfield and Eleanor Grier Gavin came 4th … Boys Snr 4 x 50m Freestyle team of Colm Garrick, Darragh Quinn, Jimmy Wiseman and Brain Moran came 2nd … Girls Snr 4 x 50m Freestyle team of Jill McGee, Ciara McGowan, Sarah Wiseman and Zoe Davis came 3rd …

Others to compete on the day were Rory Grier Gavin, Maeve Garrick, Liam McLoughlin and Aishling Walls. So after all the effort it was by and large a happy if tired group who returned to Castlebar, these young athletes are a credit to their club and their coaches, keep up the good work.