McMahon & Cooney enjoy NAC success

The final day of the Irish Short Course Nationals at the NAC in Dublin was dominated by 14-year-old Sycerika McMahon who took her individual gold medal tally to six, writes RTÉ's John Kenny.

The Larne swimmer won the women's 400 metres individual medley and 100 breaststroke final, both in Irish junior record times.

Indeed McMahon almost made it seven in the women's 200 metres freestyle but Olympian Aisling Cooney held off the young pretender to win her second individual gold in 2.00.51.

It was a good last day for Cooney, who broke the Irish senior record in the semi-finals of the women's 100 metres Backstroke on Saturday and set another in the final creating history in becoming the first Irish women under a minute for the event, taking the gold medal in a world class 59.89 seconds.

Cooney also led off the ESB women's 4x100 medley relay squad and it looked as if her club they would have to be content to finish behind Aer Lingus who cut nearly two seconds inside the two year old Irish senior record.

However, Aer Lingus were subsequently disqualified for an early change over and ESB were awarded the gold.

Veteran Donal O'Neill, who made a return to competitive swimming earlier this year, showed that he is in good form ahead of the upcoming European championships in Istanbul next month when he won the men's 100m backstroke in a fast 53.55 seconds, just .18 of a second shy of his own Irish record.

Incredibly, the 26-year-old O'Neill then went even faster when, swimming for his club Trojan in first leg of the men's 4x100m medley relay, he broke the 100m backstroke record with a time of 53.39 seconds.

Trojan also won the Irish title in 3.45.60, smashing the seven-year old Irish record by almost three seconds.

Conor Leaney of Larne, an Irish international and another of the 10-strong European championship squad, completed the freestyle clean-sweep, taking the men's 50 and 200 metres Freestyle titles to add to the 100m gold he won on Saturday.

Michael Dawson of Ards, another of the Istanbul squad, was, however, surprised in the final of the men's 100 breaststroke final when he was beaten to the gold by Trojan's Stephen O'Nolan.