Willow Park Junior School 'Duel in the pool' on March 2nd, 2011

4 schools,187 swimmers, 285 heats and just 4 hours to get through it - this is the duel in the pool!
Hosted annually by Willow Park swim team, the Junior school invites the best Leinster swimming has to offer - toswim in a four way competition. Each swimmer is asked to swim any of 3 strokes over 50m distances - with the top 3 in each age group winning points for their school. Having seen the entry list prior to the competition, Willow swimmers knew what to expect -some very fast and exciting swimming!

7-9 years.
This age group represents to strongest offering in Willow, with the relay teams coming in as firm favourites to take the spoils on the day. This group holds multiple Leinster championship titles through Phillip Towns, Mark Foster, Peter Harrington and Liam Heylin. Phillip and Peter swam well in the opening events -Phillip Towns took the 50m title with Mark Foster just outside a podium place in 4th. Again the formidable Harrington/Towns combination dominated the 50mbackcrawl, with Liam Heylin just being edged into 4th by .66 of a second.
Liam Heylin shone through in the 50m breaststroke with an emphatic win-two seconds faster then his nearest competitor. Peter taking bronze in the 25m butterfly. New talent continues to shine through Willow swimming. Our technical squad fared well with personal best Ben Melly-Murphy and Mark Hughes......Watch this space!

11year olds
Robert Hally-Doody took bronze in the 50m freestyle with Jack O'Dea, Louis O'Reilly, Peter Walsh and Thomas Flatiron just outside a podium place. Peter Walsh was edged out into 4th in the 50m freestyle by .30 of a second-very unlucky on this occasion.

Harvey Gallager had a fantastic 50m breaststroke to take his first medal of the year-Harvey started on the technical squad and moved through the programme over the course of 12 months-this is a massive result for Harvey. Robert Hally-Doody picked up his second podium place of the afternoon, taking silver in the same event.

Our resident butterfly specialist Thomas clarkson took bronze in the 25m event.just under a second separated first to third.Thomas went on to swim a further relays against the winner of this event-some very tough swimming! The under 11 relay (MTR) was as exiting as it gets, with both Willow and Belgrove neck and neck to the finish. A touch and a .03 of a second gap divided the teams - with Belgrove taking the spoils on this occasion. Louis O Reilly, Harvey Gallagher, Thomas Clarkson and Robert Hally Doody performed well for their school and continue to develop their skill during training.

12 years
Ronan Mullen and Robert Sheedy shone through in the 50m Freestyle and Breaststroke respectively. The combined pairing with John Fairley and Thomas Clarkson took the title in emphatic fashion in the Boys 12yrs MTR. The FTR title was also taken with Robert Hally Doody and Louis O' Reilly swimming up for the occasion.

All in all a fantastic event!
Belgrove won the Willow Park 'Duel In the Pool' Perpertual Trophy by just 5 points. Although the Willow Boys were disappointed to be "pipped to the post", they now have a goal for thenext season. The Boys continue into the year with two more events scheduled - The Kildare Place Inter-school competition and the Leinster Schools Swimming Confined championships in May 2011. I'm sure that the boys will perform well in both events.

A huge thanks needs to be said to all who helped out on the day to bring this together. A major Willow effort was required and so they all delivered!
-Rory Crinion for organising the guys from school,
- Alan Fallon for the setup of the event and
- the legions of parents who got involved just for the pride of seeing their boys swim so well on the day.

James Lawless
Swim-Coach
WPJS