City of Sunderland New Year Meet was the stage for Fermanagh swimmer Ellie McCartney’s debut with the Swim Ireland Performance Pathway squad at the weekend.

After setting off from Dublin airport on Friday evening, Ellie’s first swim was 100m Breaststroke on Saturday afternoon.

A confident swim gave her a finishing time of 1:15.93 and taking the 14 year old age group gold medal. In fact, she earned the fastest female time out of all age groups in that event.

Sunday’s performances included her favourite 200m Breaststroke, where again Ellie came in first with a strong swim to a time of 2:41.02.

Once again, Ellie was the fastest female in the pool in that event, swimming faster than girls up to five years her senior.

A third gold was to follow later that afternoon in the 50m Breaststroke with a finishing time of 35:29 seconds.

Three golds from three events, what a storming start for the young Lakelander in her first meet with the National squad.

Lakelanders Gala Secretary, Noel McManus said: “Every young Lakelanders swimmer is inspired by Ellie, the whole club is proud of her and we look forward to seeing this as the first of many International successes for her.”