Fiona Doyle

Fiona attended primary school at St. Nessan's National School in Mungret, County Limerick, she then moved to the Crescent College Comprehensive in Dooradoyle, County Limerick for her second level education. When she moved to Dublin in 2009 she attended the Institute of Education for her final year.

Fiona and her twin sister Eimear learned to swim in Saint Paul’s Swimming Club which was founded in 1974 by their paternal grandad Michael J. Doyle. They then progressed to lane swimming and transferred to Limerick Swimming Club and were coached by Gerry Ryan, John Dempsey, Anne Mulcair and Barbara Nalewko. Fiona also has four other siblings.

In 2005, Fiona qualified for her first major international swim meet, the European Youth Olympic Festival in which she placed 4th in the 100m breaststroke in a time of 1.13. and broke her previously held Irish Record in the process. Later that summer, she went on to better that time and win a gold medal at the British Age Group Championships, Sheffield. In 2006, Swim Ireland established a High Performance centre in Limerick at the University of Limerick Arena. Fiona and Eimear were amongst the first swimmers to be selected for the new squad coached by Canadian, Steve Price and in 2007, they represented Ireland at the European Junior Swimming Championships in Antwerp where they both made finals. In 2008 Fiona moved to Edmonton for eight weeks in an attempt to qualify for the Beijing Olympics and trained with Steve Price who had taken up the Head Coach position with EKSC, earlier in the year. While in Canada she competed in the 2008 Alberta Senior Provincial Championship in Calgary where she won Gold in the 200Breaststroke breaking the Irish Junior record in a time of 2:35.26 and took silver in the 50 & 100 Breaststroke and 100 Freestyle.[5] While she failed to achieve the A qualifying standard she was determined to pursue a dream she had since she was eleven to swim at the Olympics. In 2009, she moved to Dublin to train with Portmarnock Swimming Club and the NAC High Performance Centre where she was coached by Anne Burdis, Peter O’Brien and Paul O’Donovan.

Fiona accepted a sports scholarship from the University of Calgary as it had a proven track record under Head-Coach Mike Blondal, in coaching international and Olympic class swimmers and has one of the top performing women’s swimming team in the CIS

In 2014 competed in the European Long Course Championships, where she placed 7th in the 50m breaststroke.

Swim Ireland awarded her athlete of the year 2014 for the second year running.[6]

In 2015, Fiona was awarded the 2015 CIS female swimmer of the year[7] after winning all the breaststroke events. This was the first time since 2009 that a clean sweep was accomplished in the breaststroke events.

During the 2015 World University Games, in Gwangju South Korea, Fiona placed 2nd in the 50m breaststroke and 3rd in the 100m breaststroke and became the first Irish swimmer to qualify for the 2016 Summer Olympics.[8][9]

Fiona has represented Ireland in the following competitions;

2005 EYOF Lignano

2005 European Short Course Championships Trieste

2006 European Junior Championships Majorica

2007 European Junior Championships Antwerp

2008 FINA Youth World Swimming Championships Monterey

2008 European Short Course Championships Croatia

2009 World Aquatics Championships XIII FINA World Championships Rome

2011 Summer Universiade World University Games Shenzhen

2013 Summer Universiade World University Games Kazan

2013 World Aquatics Championships XV FINA World Championships Barcelona

2013 Duel in the Pool Championships Europe vs. USA Glasgow

2014 European Long Course Championships Berlin

2015 Summer Universiade World University Games Gwangju

2015 World Aquatics Championships XVI FINA World Championships Kazan

2016 European Long Course Championships London

2016 Rio Olympic Games

• Fiona Doyle at Swim Ireland
• Fiona Doyle at the International Olympic Committee
• Fiona Doyle at Olympics at Sports-Reference.com (archived)
• Fiona Doyle on Twitter