Fiona Doyle - Irish Olympic Swimmer
Thanks to Limerick Community Games for this great piece on "one of their own"!
For over 40 years, many thousands of Limerick children have participated in events at local, provincial and national level in Community games and we celebrate them all. But we can also take great pride and pleasure in seeing Irish international swimmer Fiona Doyle from Raheen, qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, for she is indeed "one of our own ".
In her younger days, she participated with Regional in many events including Indoor Soccer, Gaelic Football, Rounders, Athletics and in Swimming and represented Limerick at national level in several competitions in Mosney. While chatting with her over Christmas, she remarked that she is looking forward to staying in the Olympic Village and wondered how it would compare with Mosney…but was very fast to add, “I do not think there is anything to match Mosney.”
Of course, it was at swimming that she excelled. Both Fiona and her twin sister Eimear won many medals at Mosney over the years, but they also enjoyed it so much that they returned as Community Games youth volunteers when over age for competition. On leaving school, Fiona went on a sports scholarship to the University of Calgary in Canada. In her career there she rose to the very top of collegiate swimming culminating at the 2015 championships where she won a clean sweep of all of the breaststroke events, and set 5 Irish Records in one weekend. Nationally, she has represented Ireland at 3 World Championships and she made it the 50 metre final at the 2014 European Championships.
But some of her greatest swims have been at the World University Games In 2013, in Kazan, Russia she finished 2nd, beaten only by the Russian who went on to become the World Champion a few weeks later. At the 2015 games in South Korea, she won silver and bronze medals in the 50 and 100 metres respectively. It was in the semi final of that 100 metres event that she achieved her life's ambition qualification for the 2016 Olympics which is all the more cherished as she missed out on London 2012 by less than half a second. She continues to train from her base in Canada. On a very brief trip home at Christmas, Limerick Community Games officers were delighted to meet up with her again to congratulate her on her achievements over the past 10 years and to make a presentation to her marking her success to date and wishing her well as she prepares for the Olympic 100 metres breaststroke on August 6th in "Rio ".
In her younger days, she participated with Regional in many events including Indoor Soccer, Gaelic Football, Rounders, Athletics and in Swimming and represented Limerick at national level in several competitions in Mosney. While chatting with her over Christmas, she remarked that she is looking forward to staying in the Olympic Village and wondered how it would compare with Mosney…but was very fast to add, “I do not think there is anything to match Mosney.”
Of course, it was at swimming that she excelled. Both Fiona and her twin sister Eimear won many medals at Mosney over the years, but they also enjoyed it so much that they returned as Community Games youth volunteers when over age for competition. On leaving school, Fiona went on a sports scholarship to the University of Calgary in Canada. In her career there she rose to the very top of collegiate swimming culminating at the 2015 championships where she won a clean sweep of all of the breaststroke events, and set 5 Irish Records in one weekend. Nationally, she has represented Ireland at 3 World Championships and she made it the 50 metre final at the 2014 European Championships.
But some of her greatest swims have been at the World University Games In 2013, in Kazan, Russia she finished 2nd, beaten only by the Russian who went on to become the World Champion a few weeks later. At the 2015 games in South Korea, she won silver and bronze medals in the 50 and 100 metres respectively. It was in the semi final of that 100 metres event that she achieved her life's ambition qualification for the 2016 Olympics which is all the more cherished as she missed out on London 2012 by less than half a second. She continues to train from her base in Canada. On a very brief trip home at Christmas, Limerick Community Games officers were delighted to meet up with her again to congratulate her on her achievements over the past 10 years and to make a presentation to her marking her success to date and wishing her well as she prepares for the Olympic 100 metres breaststroke on August 6th in "Rio ".
