The second part of the Connacht Indoors double bill and the medals kept coming on another very successful day for the Club and its talented young athletes. Sunday was the turn of the Under-14 to Under-19 age groups and the large crowd in attendance in Athlone were treated to a great day of athletics.
Following cross country triumph on Wednesday, Emma Brennan produced two outstanding runs of real class for a middle-distance double when winning gold in both the U16 800m and 1500m. The latter was a classic ‘championship race’ with six girls in contention 400m from the end before Emma made the decisive move to secure victory with a fantastic turn of pace. Rachel Keenan and Robin Óg Murphy also showed their strength with very good runs in what was one of the races of the day.
Kevin Og Murphy was a regular visitor to the podium on a brilliant day of competition for him winning gold in the U15 high jump, silver in the 60m and bronze in the shot put. An excellent return to medal in three very different events.
Indeed, the field events saw superb achievements by Longford athletes with Sinead Masterson’s excellent PB leap of 1.45m claiming silver in the U14 girls high jump while Rian McCaffrey and Timothy Sheridan won silver and bronze respectively in the boys competition. Rian narrowly missed out on another medal when placing fourth in the 800m and Sinead also placed fourth in the long jump.
Izzy Masterson sprinted to silver in the U14 60m clocking a swift 8.52 seconds and Holly Rogers also showed great speed for silver in both the U18 60m and 200m.
Daria Lavorko won bronze in the U17 high jump while Ben Quinn secured silver with a good run in the U19 1500m.
Most unlucky was Seán Grealy whose hamstring tightened up in the final few metres of the U16 200m and he missed out on a medal by only 0.03. Earlier he was only 0.02 off bronze in the 60m.
Katie Duignan, having won her heat, narrowly missed out on bronze when placing fourth on times in the U17 200m.
The indoor season has seen many club members take on new events and showing great improvements in each such as Darcey Brady who clocked a big 800m PB while also placing a very good fourth in the U14 60m hurdles. Credit to Alisha Manning who competed in the race walk for the first time as well as doing the long jump and 800m. Along with the 1500m, Robin Óg Murphy also competed in the walk and the long jump on a busy day of events.
Many other athletes were multi-eventing too and performed great with numerous PBs over the day: Cara Dorr, Cara Davis, Sophia Carey, Sinead Fitzsimons, Oisín Dillon, John Keenan, Ronan Grealy, Daniel Higgins, Leah McVeigh, Kelly Davis, Lucy Maher, Rachel Walsh, Aibhe Foley, Amy Cheshire, Max Gallagher, Amy Jordan and Sian Gallagher.
The relays provided great excitement as the day drew to a close and produced a trio of medal-winning Longford teams. Darcey, Alisha and the two Sinead’s claimed bronze in the U14 4 x 200m. Our U16 team of Aibhe, Rachel Keenan, Robin Óg and Emma combined well for bronze also while Katie, Holly, Sian and Amy won U18 silver following a great battle with GCH.
Well done to all and congratulations to all medalists. Longford AC placed fifth on the medals table after the two days with 10 Gold, 10 Silver and 7 Bronze. A great return!
Great credit to our club coaches, particularly Paul and John, for their excellent work with the athletes in preparation ahead of the weekend.
A super couple of days of Connacht Athletics action. Thanks again to the event officials who enable these days of competition to take place in a safe and organised manner.
