It was a busy weekend in Athlone as the first two days of the National Juvenile Indoors took place. The racing continued into Sunday evening with one of the last events producing one of our club highlights with Robin Óg Murphy winning gold in the Under-18 1500m walk.
Robin Óg committed to a fast pace from the outset and was rewarded with top spot on the podium and a brilliant new personal best time of 6:49 following a superb race. On Mother’s Day, Robin Óg’s mum Áine had the honour of making the gold medal presentation to daughter Robin Óg in a lovely family moment.
Minutes earlier, there had been another Longford gold in the race walks as Conor Brennan took the victory in the U15 1000m. Conor led from start to finish showing excellent pacing and discipline in maintaining good technique to win his second National indoor title.
It was a super Saturday for Andrew Fitzpatrick who enjoyed brilliant double gold medal success. First up was the U13 2kg Shot Put with Andrew achieving a best effort of 12.35m during a very impressive series of throws. He followed this with gold in the 60m Hurdles clocking a swift 9.61 seconds personal best to take the win following a close finish.
His brother John also got in on the medal winning act when claiming silver on Sunday in the U15 High Jump with 1.60m which followed Saturday’s bronze medal won in the 60m Hurdles. A strong dip at the finish line in the latter earned the medal with just 0.01 to spare!
El’nathan Okoh enjoyed medal success too on Saturday when winning a bronze medal in the U14 Long Jump with a best leap of 4.76m. He also had top-5 finishes in the 60m Hurdles and High Jump on an excellent weekend of competition.
Oisín Dillon placed fifth in the U16 800m clocking a personal best of 2:05. Another strong showing by Oisín this indoor season who has shown great progress and can approach the outdoor season with much confidence.
There were further personal best’s set by Joe Rooney and Vilte Krasikova in the U12 60m. Excellent running by both at their first National Indoors with Vilte reaching the girls’ final and very unlucky to not get the start she was hoping for but still showed her speed to clock a good time.
Emily Oge Nnachi and Sam Davis both performed well at the 60m Hurdles and Long Jump gaining good competition experience. Emma Brennan (1500m), Aibhe Foley (200m) Marc Galligan (60m Hurdles) each also ran good races and can look forward to building on that at the upcoming schools outdoor events.
Well done to all Longford athletes over the weekend and congratulations to our medal winners – Andrew, Robin Óg, Conor, John and El’nathan. Best wishes to our athletes competing this Saturday at the concluding day of the National Championships.
