Team Ireland Announcement
Yesterday, the Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI) named the fourteen athletes – twelve swimmers and two divers – who will be representing Team Ireland at this year’s 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris. From this team, which is the largest in Ireland’s aquatic history, six of the twelve swimmers are from a Swim Ulster background and started their swimming journey amongst Ulster based swimming programmes. Our six Irish team athletes will be racing a combined total of 10 events across individual races and team relay events.
Conor Ferguson (Larne), who currently studies at Loughborough University, and swims at the University’s high-performance programme, will be making his Olympic debut for Team Ireland as he swims the Backstroke leg in the Men’s 4x100m Medley Relay. He leads off the Irish quartet as he races with teammates Darragh Greene (Breaststroke), Max McCusker (Butterfly), and Shane Ryan (Freestyle).
Daniel Wiffen (Larne), after winning the 800m Freestyle at the World Championships in Doha and becoming World Champion in February, his attention shifts and now lies with going for gold in his individual events at the Olympics – 800m Freestyle and 1500m Freestyle. With such success in recent months for Daniel, he leads Team Ireland’s prospect in the hope for an Olympic medal. After the week of swimming concludes, Daniel will remain in Paris to race in the Open Water 10km Marathon Swimming race, taking place on the River Seine on 9th August – the first Irish swimmer to compete in this discipline.
After a blistering Irish Open & Olympic Trials held back in May, Danielle Hill (Larne) will compete in two of her signature individual events. Hill will race the 50m Freestyle and 100m Backstroke – and two relay events (Women’s 4x100m Freestyle Relay and 4x100m Medley Relay) for Team Ireland. Back in June, Danielle was crowned European Champion in the 50m Backstroke at the European Championships in Belgrade after superb heats and finals swims. As our new European Champion, the Larne swimmer will be carrying a great deal of momentum into her second Olympic Games where we hope to see her strive and achieve greatness as Ireland’s fastest female swimmer.
At only 16 years-old, Grace Davison (Ards) will be making her Olympic Games debut for Ireland. At the Games, Davison will be joining Danielle Hill in the 4x100m Freestyle relay. Grace is currently racing in Vilnius, Lithuania, at the European Aquatics Junior Swimming Championships in the 100m Freestyle and the 200m Individual Medley. As competition continues in Lithuania, will be watching on in support to see how she performs only weeks away from Paris!
Paris 2024 will be the second Olympic Games for Mona McSharry (Marlins), after competing in Tokyo three years ago. Having made the 100m Breaststroke final in Tokyo, McSharry will be aiming to repeat history in both the 100m and 200m Breaststroke events. Training out of the University of Tennessee, Mona will be carrying recent success through into the Games. McSharry broke the Ulster and Irish Senior Record in the 200m Breaststroke in a scorching time of 2:22.49 only a few weeks ago in Canada – the 3rd fastest time recorded this year. McSharry will also have a critical role to play in the Women’s 4x100m Medley relay that is scheduled for Day 8 of the swimming meet.
Training out of National Centre Dublin, Victoria Catterson (Ards) is the sixth Ulster athlete who has been selected to represent Team Ireland at the Summer Olympic Games. Having raced superbly in May at the Irish Open & Olympic Trials, Catterson makes her Olympic debut at these Games and has earned a spot on the Women’s 4x100m Freestyle. This relay is scheduled for the first day of competition on 27th July to kickstart the Games into action!
Who else is going from Ulster?
As previously announced, Jack McMillan (Bangor) will be racing for Team GB in the 4x200m Freestyle relay with the hope of the British team taking home some hardware from the Games. The University of Stirling swimmer will be racing in Paris alongside some esteemed teammates, such as the reigning Olympic Champion Tom Dean, Commonwealth Games Champion Duncan Scott, British Champion and World Champion (2023) Matthew Richards, and previous World Champion James Guy. From this relay’s exceptional calibre and deep history, we are very excited to see how this team fairs on the world stage in Paris.
Finally, for our three Paralympians who have been announced previously (Barry McClements; Dearbhaile Brady; Deaten Registe), they take to the pool from 29th August to 7th September.
We are delighted to have 10 athletes from Ulster travelling to the Games to represent both Team Ireland and Team GB in their pursuit of the Olympic dream. We are eagerly awaiting the start of the action in Paris when the swimming commences 27th July. Follow us on social media platforms (found on our homepage) for continuous updates surrounding our athletes at the Games as they compete for Team Ireland and Team GB.