Ellie McCartney and Ellen Walshe starred on the penultimate night of racing at the 2025 Irish Open Swimming Championships at the Sport Ireland National Aquatic Centre with McCartney locking in a consideration time for the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, bringing the number with times achieved to seven and Walshe lowering her newly minted 200m freestyle Irish record.
McCartney secured a championship record and consideration time for the World Aquatics Championships in the 200m breaststroke semi-final. The 20-year-old, who came into the meet with a best time of 2:26.07, clocked 2:24.35 to go well under the consideration time of 2:25.91 for the Worlds.
The National Centre Limerick swimmer now has consideration times for the European Under-23 Championships, World University Games and World Championships and is Ireland’s second fastest ever 100m and 200m female breaststroke swimmer behind Olympic bronze medallist Mona McSharry.
“I’m over the moon, I never imagined to be 2:24,” said the Enniskillen swimmer after the race. “I thought it was going to be a push to make that A standard time but tonight I just wanted to give it my all, anything that was left in the tank from this week, just finish on a high.’
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Walshe, who set a new Irish record of 1:59.31 in the morning heats of the 200m freestyle, became the first Irish woman under 1:59 as she clocked 1:58.88 in the semi-final to progress as top seed to Wednesday’s final. The Templeogue swimmer is still to compete in her main event, the 400m individual medley, where she was an Olympic finalist, on Wednesday morning.
