Report by Richard Hawkins
The Munster U14 to U19 athletics Championships took place over last weekend with a welcome respite from travel for the Cork clubs who made the short trip to MTU. It was quite humid, but conditions were favourable for competition. Carraig Na BhFear AC athletes performed extremely well again as they build towards the National Finals. There was success early on as Robyn Maher was crowned Munster Champion in the girls U17 3k walk in a time of 16.22, Anna Mullins also raced well winning the bronze medal in 16.36. Winning margins can be agonizingly small in athletics, but fortunately Aoibhe Dunlea had the rub of the green in the girls U15 100m final on this occasion in a race which set a new Championship best result. Aoibhe finished in 3rd place in a time of 13.312s, just 5/1000’s of a second separating 3rd and 4th places! Lily O’Keeffe finished in 3rd place in her heat in 14.27 but was outside the qualifying time for the final. Aoibhe also won her heat in the girls U15 200m and improved her time to 28.31 in the final but was out of the medals in another Championship record race. Rebecca McCarthy ran 31.72 in heat 5 of the 200m. Amelia O’Donovan had a creditable 5th place overall in the girls U14 75m hurdles. Mary-Kate Dawson raced well in the U15 girls 80m hurdles, just outside the medals by 1/10th of a second in a big pb time of13.85 and also finished 3rd in her heat of the 250m hurdles in 40.94, the medals were decided on overall times. Bella Quinlan finished 4th in Heat 8 of the U14 girls 80m in a time of 11.31. Hannah Coffey won gold in the Girls U15 pole vault with a best of 2.60cm and placed 7th in the girls U15 high jump with a best of 1.30m. Emma Johnson ran well in heat 2 of the girls U15 1500m (time not recorded on results).The girls U18 800m was a breakthrough race for Caoimhe Gray-Walsh, often in the medals but on this occasion pushing through for the gold medal in 2:29:37, well deserved! Caoimhe also ran 1.04.88 for 3rd place in her heat of the girls U18 400m but was outside of the medals which were decided on times from the heats.
Daniel Hogan maintained his podium streak with double silver, jumping 5.32m in the U15 boys long Jump and 10.51m in the triple jump, just 2cm off the winning jump. Travis De Souza missed out on Bronze in the boys U14 long jump by 1cm with his jump of 4.36m and there was yet another unlucky 4th place in the U15 girls long jump for Aoibhe Dunlea who had an excellent jump of 4.70m. Congratulations to all the athletes on some great performances and thanks to the coaches for the hard work.
Congratulations to Faye O’Riordan who won another Irish Cap, this time running in the U18 World Mountain running Championships in Donovaly, Slovakia. Faye had put in months of targeted training to prepare for the 5.1km, uphill course with 572 metres of elevation! With heat to contend with as well as the elevation Faye improved on her performance of last year finishing in a time of 46.21, well done Faye! Also running abroad, Ciaran Nugent had a seasons best time of 53.98 finishing 2nd in the Malta International 400m hurdles at the Marsa track familiar to many club members from a previous training camp.
Look ahead: We are back in MTU this weekend for the County U20, U23, Senior and Masters Track and Field Championships. Best of luck to all competing.