Walshe Secures Stunning Gold Medal in Poland
Ireland’s Ellen Walshe has won a spectacular gold medal in the 200m Butterfly on the closing night of racing at the European Aquatics Championships in Poland bringing Ireland’s medal tally to seven, including three gold medals from Walshe (200m Butterfly) Daniel Wiffen (1500m Freestyle) and John Shortt (200m Backstroke), a silver medal from Walshe (200m IM) and three bronze medals from Daniel Wiffen (400m, 800m Freestyle) and Evan Bailey (200m Freestyle), Ireland finished fifth on the medal table.
Walshe stormed to 200m Butterfly gold in 2:03.24 and became the first Irish woman to be crowned a European Short Course Champion, it is the 24-year-old’s first senior international gold, a decade after her first international medal where she won silver at the European Youth Olympic Festival.
The Templeogue swimmer was controlled from the start of the race, turning seventh at 50 metres, she was sixth by 75 metres, it was at 150 metres she made her move to third and the only in the last 25 metres she stormed home in first ahead of Denmark’s Helena Rosendahl Bach in 2:03.55 and Italy’s Anita Gastaldi in 2:04.07.
A delighted Walshe spoke after the race ‘I think it was going to be a big race with the girl’s tonight, it was a stacked field of fliers, so it was going to be about who had the better backend, you just have to hold on for the first 150m and then just try bring it home the last 50 and that’s just what I did, I just kicked like hell.’
‘I think you have to stick to your own process, which is so important to not race anyone else’s race, I know the back end can be strong, the front end, it’s definitely a weakness that I have, I need to get out quicker. It’s something I’m trying to work on it, but yeah, I probably need to be out a bit quicker with these girls and kind of help myself through the back end instead of like hurting so bad, but, yeah, it worked tonight, so it must work.’
Despite winning two gold at the European U23 Championships in Dublin in 2023, it was the first time Walshe stood on top of a podium and heard the national anthem she said ‘I think you got to enjoy these moments because they don’t come very often and I guess to stand on the top of the podium, it doesn’t come often. It’s my first gold medal on the international stage; I guess you have to kind of enjoy the moment because it’s over now. It’s over very quick, but it was great to have the flag and see my parents in the stands.’
On the team’s performances this week Walshe said ‘It was absolutely savage, each and every one of them played a massive part in everyone’s success this week, and I think we all got to kind of drive off that and just use it into the next season. It’s extremely important to keep the energy really high in the team, obviously some results can be disappointing, but we’ve got to use each other and feed off each other through this meet. Even heading into next week, like some people may be disappointed, but use the adrenaline that you are frustrated with and just bring it into next week and there’ll be some savage results on the board next week. So, yeah, the teams in a great place, so I’m super excited to see what we got this summer.’
Just thirty minutes after her gold medal win, Walshe was back in the pool for the 400m Individual Medley Final, the gruelling double saw Walshe place seventh in 4:38.51.
As well as the seven podium finishes Irish swimmers have set nineteen Irish Records including twelve senior and seven junior and swam forty-three lifetime bests across the six days.
Speaking at the conclusion of the Championships Interim National Performance Director Andy Reid said ‘This has been an outstanding European Aquatics Short Course Championships for Irish Swimming. The athletes have approached the meet with exceptional professionalism in their preparations and have demonstrated impressive maturity and composure in their race execution through the rounds. Their performances truly speak for themselves. This team has set a new benchmark for Irish swimming, and we are immensely proud of the way they represented Ireland on the European stage.’
Team Ireland will arrive back to T2 Dublin Airport at 1pm on Monday 8th December from Warsaw.
Attention now turns to the Irish Winter Championships at the Sport Ireland Campus Dublin from December 12th – 14th where many of the swimmers that represented Ireland this week will be competing.
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