17 February 2018 at the Tullamore Court Hotel
Cian McPhillips was named Juvenile 2017 Star for Longford for the second year in a row at the Athletics Ireland Juvenile Awards Banquet at the Tullamore Court Hotel on February 17th. The Annual Juvenile Awards ceremony has become one of the highlights of each year, acknowledging excellence in individual performance at National and International level.
Juvenile athletics in Ireland had a stellar year in 2017 as 68 new records were set across a wide variety of events. Guest speaker Patsy McGonagle, former Irish Athletics Team Manager at World and Olympic level, stressed the huge importance of support and leadership that parents, volunteers and coaches give to young athletes from their foundation at Club level upwards that enables them to develop their natural talent. In his inspirational talk he emphasised the range of opportunities available to the young athletes, encouraging them that dedication to training, good decision making with parents involved and utilising their talents would see further success in the coming year.
Longford Athletic Club has gone from strength to strength over the last five years and the Club is delighted to see its juvenile members performing at Provincial, National and International level. At U16 Cian’s top performances included National 800m Champion in both indoor and outdoor track, National U16 5000m Cross Country Champion and All-Ireland Silver in 1500m He earned two caps for Ireland competing in both the Celtic Games and Antrim International Cross Country where his individual Gold at each added to success for Ireland winning team Gold as well at both outings. Cian, son of Paddy and Laura McPhillips, is currently a Junior Cert student at Moyne Community School and will be competing in next weekend’s Connacht Indoor Championships at Athlone IT.
Previous Juvenile Star Awards winners for Longford were Paul Brady (1999), Elizabeth Brady (2000, 2001, 2002) and Claire Collins (2004).
