Head coach talks of club’s pride as trio gear up for Olympic Games
Rory McKee
ARDS Swimming Club athletes set to appear on the Olympic stage this summer can serve as ‘inspiration’ for the generation to follow, believes their proud head coach.
Looking ahead to the Games, which get underway in Paris this weekend, Curtis Coulter has hailed home trio Grace Davidson, Victoria Catterson and Barry McClements as Team Ireland prepare to make a splash in the sport’s greatest arena.
Curtis, who has been in the club’s head coach post since 2021, admits 2024 has been a ‘more stressful year than most’ given what is at stake, but is harbouring genuine hopes for success in the French capital.
At just 16, Bangor girl Grace Davidson is making history in not only being the youngest ever Irish swimmer to go to an Olympic Games, but she’s also the youngest member of Team Ireland across all sports in Paris.
Grace is awaiting her GCSE results next month, but they aren’t the only top marks she’s out to achieve. Both she and her Ards club colleague Victoria Catterson are in line to compete in Ireland’s 4x100m Freestyle relay team on day one of competition at the Games – only one of them will end up swimming in the Medley relay team a week later which, according to Curtis, has ‘a reasonable chance’ of making an Olympic final.
“To have two from the same club making up half of an Irish relay team competing at such a high level is amazing,” he told the Chronicle.
“I hope it’s inspiring for the next generation of our club. We have a long history of developing talent, we have sent more swimmers to the Commonwealth Games in the last 20 years than any other swimming club in the country.
“Before 2021, it had been a long time since any Irish relay team were sent to an Olympics and now there’s three teams going in total, with two of them female. I think it’s the first female relay team Ireland have had since 1972,” added Curits.
“Once you’re in a relay final, you just never know what could happen with changeovers and so on.”
It’s fair to say that Grace and Victoria have been on a journey together. Both were on the same team that won the 4x100m Freestyle at the US Open, swam together in a Commonwealth Games final and at World Championships. Now they’re heading to the Olympics, once again side by side.
But the girls did have to endure a tense wait before their Olympic dream was turned into reality.
“When all was said and done in the rankings after the World Championships, the Freestyle team ended up in 17th when you need to be in the top 16,” Curtis explained.
“So that meant when we were going to the Irish Olympic trials in May, the only team that had definitely got its place was the 4x100m Medley which only has one freestyle leg.
“With both the girls being on the Freestyle, they effectively ended up in competition.
“Victoria’s six years older than Grace and the girls get on really well, it reached that point where it’s almost like you go from being a role model to being in direct competition,” he continued.
“In the qualification procedure, the two girls were tied down to the hundreth of a second on both their first and second fastest swims. That’s significant in that the policy was going down to the second fastest swim as well.
“As a club, it was definitely a tense moment as it looked like one of the girls would be missing out and that was going to be hard. It was only a few weeks after that the invitation came in the post for the 4x100m Freestyle relay that we knew both girls were going, with one of the other teams in the world basically not accepting their place.
“Both girls have dedicated a lot and the main thing they can do is go out and enjoy the experience now.”
Twenty-two year-old Victoria, a staple part of Irish international relays for the whole of this Olympic cycle, is based at the national training centre in Dublin. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), she said: “I am so excited to finally say I will be in Paris for my first Olympic Games this summer for Team Ireland.
“There are so many people to thank but for now, thank you to Team Ireland Swim Ireland for this opportunity to represent my country at the highest level.”
For Grace, these Games will act as an invaluable learning tool with a view to being a contender on the individual front at future Olympics.
“She’s been fortunate in her career so far to have the experience of swimming in a Commonwealth relay final at a young age,” said Curtis. “But it is about picking up as much as she can. She’ll know who to watch out for in terms of the medallists and how they conduct themselves on the world stage, to hopefully bring that through to four years’ time, perhaps as an individual qualifier.”
Also representing his local club on our TV screens this summer will be Newtownards para swimmer Barry McClements, who trained with the Ards club until he was 18.
In 2022, Barry became the first Northern Irish medallist in swimming at the Commonwealth Games and he arrives in Paris on the back of winning European bronze in the Butterfly in April.
“Barry’s a very talented swimmer, I would imagine that anyone who has seen him swimming in public from the stands would maybe have to look several times to actually realise that he is a para swimmer,” Curtis said of the 22 year-old.
“What impresses me most about Barry is he has never used his disability as an excuse not to do anything. He has a powerful kick, he’s been developing on the international stage now for over six years and I would back him to be right in the hunt for an individual medal in Paris.”
Barry told the Chronicle that his exploits earlier this year have given him renewed hope for Paralympic success.
“I am very excited to be going to my second Paralympic Games,” he said. “After a European medal in April I have more confidence, I’m more eager than ever before to compete and show off my racing skills.”
Another Ards Swimming Club star, Bethany Firth, would have been bidding to add to her collection of six Paralympic gold medals at these Games. The multi-World and European medallist will instead be watching on from home this summer as she is expecting the birth of a baby girl in the coming days.
As far as Olympic preparation is concerned, faults with mechanical pool floors at the Aurora Leisure Centre in Bangor have been well documented. However Ards head coach Curtis was keen to stress that the recent picture is a more positive one.
“We have had longcourse access for three months now, which is more than we’ve had in the last two years combined,” he said.
“I do believe that it has had a positive impact as the season has gone on, for example when Grace won her bronze medal at the European Junior Championships she was able to have two or three months access [to the pool] in the run-up to that, and that’s a real positive.
“Swimming’s a very time consuming sport,” continued Curtis. These guys have to train eight or nine times a week in the pool, they have physio and gym sessions and then they have to look after themselves outside the pool too in terms of making sure they get enough sleep.
“Between Barry, Grace and Victoria, they have around 30 years’ membership in our club and they have been an integral part of our structure.
“You feel a passion for what our club represents and can achieve, even those who don’t train under me directly, they have still maintained their membership and anybody who comes through the club feels a loyalty towards it. I know that will be the case for these three as well.”
As a fan of Irish swimming more generally, Curtis said he ‘can’t quite believe’ the turnaround in fortunes for Team Ireland in the pool.
“There were years where we would have sent maybe three swimmers to an Olympics; this year we’re sending 12.
“Danielle Hill has put in some brilliant performances this year and she will be hoping to reach an individual final, you have Connor Ferguson who I think is a real lesson in perseverance because he missed out by five-hundredths of a second as a 16 year-old in 2016.
“And Daniel Wiffin – who won World Championship gold – knowing him he’ll be disappointed if he doesn’t come away with Olympic gold in the 1500m, never mind any medal.
“Thinking about the history of Irish swimming over the last 30 years, I can’t quite believe we can even talk about having so many realistic medal chances.
“It’s not the Irish swimming that I grew up in 15 years ago and it’s bound to help our swimmers going to their first Olympics that they have team mates around them who have been here before and who they can learn from.”
Ards Swimming Club chairperson Shelley Adams described the selections of Grace, Victoria and Barry as ‘amazing’ news for the club.
“As a club, we are extremely proud of Grace, Victoria and Barry’s achievements and wish them every success in Paris. I hope it inspires some of our swimmers to follow their dreams.”
