This weekend, Sommer Lecky travelled to Birmingham to compete in the English Championships, going on to win the high jump at 1.80 which translates as a season’s best performance
Meanwhile in Carmarthen Wales, Katie Louise McMonagle a student of Gairmscoil Chú Uladh and Odhran McBrearty of St Columba’s College, were competing for an Irish schools team and gaining invaluable experience at this development stage in their careers. Both finishing 7th and contributing to the Irish total in four nations meet with England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland taking part, the event was once again dominated by the English schools team. Congratulations to both and we look forward to seeing these exciting young athletes compete on many more occasions for Ireland at various levels in the future.
Tullamore was the venue Saturday and Sunday for a number of our young athletes, with the National Underage Championships being held, including the B Championships, the B Relay and Event Championships. On Saturday the highlight was the U13 girls relay team in which a talented group of young athletes, made up of Jasmine Barrett Doherty, Sheridan McMonagle, Ciara McCusker and Caoimhe McElhinney, won bronze. The event was won by Dundalk and on another day, Finn Valley could certainly challenge for gold. On Saturday also, in the B Championships, there were medals for Bonnie Devlin and Nia Byrne at 800m. This bodes well for the cross country events which will kick off early in September at Finn Valley with the Annual Schools Meeting. There were a number of other young athletes that travelled, all who have gained invaluable experience at National level for some future date.
On Sunday, a cold miserable day punctuated by showers, there were gold medal performances and National Championship titles for Mark Wilkinson in the high jump, Blaine Lynch in the javelin, a silver for Dean Leeper in the javelin, producing a big PB. Earlier in the day, there was a bronze medal Leah O’Gara in the 2k walk, underlining her obvious potential in this event.
Other athletes who had qualification rights through the Ulster Championships include Amy Timoney third in her U18 100m heat; Lauren McConnell third in U18 100m heat; Ace Rodriguez fourth in his U18 100m heat; Jessica Gavin seventh in U16 100m heat; Erin Sproule seventh in U17 400m heat; Leona Slevin 13th in U16 long jump; Ciara McCusker 9th in U13 80m and the hard luck story of the day was a 4th place finish for Sheridan McMonagle in the 80m, just loosing out by 1hundreth of a second.
On Sunday, some 25 club members travelled north to Malin to participate in the Tower to Town run, many of whom are members of the club’s Fit4life group.
Looking ahead, the National League final takes place on Sunday in Tullamore, with the men’s and the women’s teams in the premier league final. The men’s team will have services of Brendan Boyce, Joseph Gillespie, Oisin Thompson, Blaine Lynch all of whom should return strong points in the men’s section. Meanwhile in the women’s section, the presence of Bridget McDyer, Janine Boyle, Arlene Crossan, Eimear McCarroll, Lauren Callaghan provide great strength and depth in their pursuit of points. It is, of course, a team event in which every point is strongly chased and indeed is vital to record a strong ranking position at the end of the day. Team Managers, John Rogan and Shauna Carlin have put in some positive work in the background to bring some life to the senior teams, something that was lacking in more recent years, and we wish them well.
Tullamore is also the venue on Saturday for the final day three of the National Underage Championships which completes the outdoors programme for 2024. A period of recovery follow with everybody back on deck in 3 to 4 weeks’ time. It’s fitting at this time, towards the end of the season, to acknowledge all the hard work and endeavour put in by the various coaches on a week-to-week basis and also to acknowledge the commitment of parents. Thank you to you all.