Hi everyone,
So, how was Budapest? For me it was a great holiday with swimming as the excuse.
I can only do Backstroke now so I had three swims and four days off to tour (More tiring than swimming).The competition was split between two facilities, one being the fabulous one built especially for the FINA World Championships (The young ones) and the others was an older outdoor facility. Each had two 50m pools and two warm up pools!!!!
The organisers split the age groups and events so I had a 200 Back and 50 Back in the outdoor pool and the 100 Back in the Main Pool and I was with the older, more mature, ladies and gentlemen. (The oldest were in the 95 – 99 age group). With so much space each day’s swimming finished by lunchtime, though the 8 o’clock start meant no breakfast a few days.
The Swim Ireland Masters Committee arranged for all our competitors to have two Budapest hats and a fluorescent green polo shirt. The shirt was bit bright in the Irish gloom but once we got into the Hungarian sun it was perfect for what we needed. We could spot an Irish swimmer a mile off!
Because of the different locations and age groups it was impossible to follow every swimmer but Dymphna Morris kept us up to date on Twitter and there was a Whats App group.
With the world’s best there medals were hard to get. FINA used to give top 10 medals but this year it was reduced to top 6. I’ve attached the Swimming and Open Water results. You can search for IRL and see how everyone did but a quick scan suggests the medal winners were
Dymphna Morris 55-59 – Open Water SILVER; 200 IM 5th; 800 Free 4th; 400 Free 5th; 200 Free 6th:
Fiona Kinsella 30-34 – 200 Free 5th:
Dan Golden 65-69 – 50 Fly GOLD; 50 Free 5th; 100 Free 5th
John Cunningham 45-49 – 100 Free 6th; 50 Fly BRONZE; 100 Fly SILVER:
(Sincere apologies if I’ve missed anyone!!)
We arrived in Budapest just in time to watch the ladies water polo team from Donegal Diamonds play their last match. This is the first time that a water polo team from Ireland has entered the Worlds – and they won a BRONZE medal.
As I mentioned before – the locations of future ‘Majors’ are – (As always subject to change!!)
2018 Europeans – Kranj (Slovenia)
2019 Worlds – Gwanju (Korea)
2020 Europeans – Budapest ( Hungary)
2021 Worlds – Fukuoka (Japan)
2023 Worlds – Doha (Qatar)
Time to start saving??
Jeff