AIT Arena was the venue for Saturday’s AAI National Junior and U23 Indoor Championships where Yemi Talabi and Nelvin Appiah both won gold medals to make it a super weekend for Longford AC.
Having won her heat earlier in the afternoon, Yemi claimed gold in the Junior Women’s 60m in a new personal best time of 7.57 seconds. The victory margin was a mere 0.01 of a second ahead of Patience Jumbo-Gula (Dundalk St. Gerards AC). Showing her versatility, Yemi also competed in the Long Jump where a jump of 5.31 metres earned her an excellent 5th place finish out of 19 entrants.
Nelvin was also involved in a close battle in the Junior Men’s High Jump before securing gold after clearing a height of 2.03 metres. He earned the win on countback ahead of Geoffrey Joy-O’Regan (Sun Hill Harriers AC) who had also jumped 2.03m. Nelvin ‘doubled up’ as well and ran in the 60m Hurdles winning silver in a superb time of 8.27 seconds which was only 0.07 seconds off gold. Next up for Nelvin will be the Millrose Games where he will compete in the High Jump.
Congratulations to Yemi and Nelvin in representing their families, our club and the county so well winning national medals over the past two weekends. Well done also to Aaron Kelly who put in fine performances in the men’s under 23 sprint distances of 60m and 200m.
