Ryan arrived at the City of Derry club almost 11 years ago as an eight-year-old on the recommendation of Paul Hegarty, who spotted the youngster’s potential while teaching him to swim at the Lisnagelvin Leisure Centre, and he advised Ryan’s father, David, to take him to the local club.

Over the next ten years, under the guidance of Carmel Gorman and Seamus McAnee and all the coaching staff at the William Street-based club, Ryan's talent and skill have been carefully nurtured and honed to make him the superb swimmer he is today.

During his career, Ryan has brought many titles and honours to the club and, indeed, the city, and he is almost certainly the best swimming prospect to come out of Derry since the late, great Liam Ball.

Ryan has the physique, the technique and the dedication to go all the way. At the moment his times are well on course for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in India and the 2012 Olympics in London.

During his time with the City of Derry, the 19-year-old has achieved many titles and records. The most notable of these are Irish and Ulster Senior Championship long course titles in the 200 and 400 metres Freestyle, Ulster Senior and Junior long course records in the same events. He also set a new Irish junior short course record in the 200 Free but was denied an Ulster Senior record in the same event because of an electronic timing malfunction.

Considered the complete swimmer with competency in all four strokes as he showed on one occasion, taking an Ulster Senior title in the 400 Individual Medley.

Enormous Campus

The University of Tennessee is an enormous campus with over 30,000 students and a fantastic record of achievement in all sports especially swimming.

Irish 2008 Olympic hopefuls, Andrew Bree and Barry Murphy, both train at the UT. No doubt Ryan will reach his full potential and achieve his sporting targets under the coaching expertise, facilities and environment available at such an institution.

Competitive swimming has one of the toughest training regimes of all sports with seven sessions a week - three of them at 6.00a.m. - and would not be easily achieved without the support of his parents and sisters, Nicola and Courtney.

The local club wishes to take this opportunity to recognise the support the following have given to Ryan during his time with the club - the Management and Staff at City Baths, Derry City Council, Derry District Sports Council, Swim Ireland and Swim Ulster, Dick Shoulberg, Germantown Academy (Philadelphia), the McNulty Family and Avon Town Commissioners (New Jersey), the Teaching and Coaching staff at City of Derry and his mates over the years, especially his training partners Adam McNulty and Gareth Gaynor.