‘It's a big moment for me': NI's Ellie McCartney becomes swimming's latest golden girl

Belfast Telegraph

6 hours ago

The 20-year-old from Enniskillen claimed the 200m individual medley crown at the event in Slovakia, but says she isn't getting carried away with thoughts of the Olympics just yet.
The swimmer, who is studying Sports Science at the University of Limerick, splits her training between the base of Swim Ireland in Limerick and Bangor's Aurora Centre, said she was delighted and surprised to have picked up the biggest title of her career to date.
'Honestly, I wasn't really expecting it,' she said, having focused much of her training on the 200m breaststroke this season.
Ellie, a former pupil at Enniskillen Royal, had qualified fastest for the final but was up against competitors who had a faster personal best time, and was in third place halfway through the four-leg event which sees swimmers combine backstroke, butterfly, breaststroke and freestyle legs.
'In the end, I think it was the breaststroke training that really helped,' she said. 'Overall the other girls have been quite a bit faster than me, but the breaststroke leg went well.'
Ellie powered through the field to take the lead and held on to take the title in a time of 2 minutes 12.5 seconds.
She had 1.22 seconds to spare over second-placed Bertille Cousson from France with Slovakia's Tamara Potocka in third.
'I didn't really have any pressure in the race,' she said. 'I had already achieved qualifying times for the World Championships which will be held in Singapore at the end of July, so it was nice to be able to go out there and just race.
'I managed to get my hand to the wall first and that was really exciting and unexpected. It's a big moment for me.'
The European U-23 championships were last held in Dublin in 2023, with Irish Olympians Daniel Wiffen and Mona McSharry among the gold medallists while Ellen Walshe was the champion in the 200m Individual medley.
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Ellie enjoyed previous success at the 2023 Commonwealth Youth Games in Trinidad and Tobago in the 100 and 200-metre breaststroke, and 200-metre individual medley when she won two golds and a bronze making her double Commonwealth Youth Games champion.
'Singapore will be a new experience for me,' she said looking ahead to next month's World Aquatic Championships.
'Being part of the Swim Ireland team going over there is something I'm really looking forward to.
'The next Olympics are still three years away so there's plenty of time to think about that later. Now it's all about the training, improving my times to make sure I qualify for these major long course (50m pool) events. Right now, anything that comes after that, like gold medals at European level to start with, is a real bonus.'
Ellie has another two events in Slovakia, with the 100m breaststroke and her favoured event, the 200m breaststroke, still to come over the weekend.
'Training well and getting the experience of competing at the World Championships is my next goal,' she said. 'Next year there's the Commonwealth Games to aim for so there's still a lot of hard work ahead.'