The club enjoyed a very successful weekend at the Connacht Indoor Championships in Athlone with medals aplenty, many personal bests recorded, much valuable experience gained and lots of fun had.
For some of our young athletes it was their first taste of indoor competition, while it was also great to see many of our experienced juveniles continue to shine on the track and in the field. Longford athletes’ achievements saw the club as one of the top five performing clubs over the two days with 18 athletes earning qualification towards the upcoming National Juvenile Championships.
A large crowd were in attendance for the younger age group events on Saturday with Longford AC enjoying 60m successes in the Under-12 age group. Speedsters Vilte Krasikova and Joe Rooney both blitzed their way to gold with superb runs with sub-9 second clockings. Emily Oge Nnachi also shone with a gold medal winning performance in the Long Jump as well as a silver medal achieved in the 60m Hurdles.
Andrew Fitzpatrick added to his treasure trove of a medal collection with making three trips to the podium over the day following individual successes. There was gold in the High Jump and the 60m Hurdles (with a sub-10 second clocking) along with bronze in the Shot Put. El’nathan Okoh recorded the furthest effort to claim gold in the Long Jump with Paul Aigbogun taking the silver medal for a Longford 1-2 in the U14 boys category. A busy day too for El’nathan saw him take silver in the High Jump and place fourth in the 60m Hurdles. The day’s work wasn’t over however as Andrew, El’nathan and Paul joined forces with Adam Mulleady in the 4 x 200m relay to win a silver medal behind an excellent Galway City Harriers quartet.
In the race walks, Conor Brennan and Robin Og Murphy both claimed victories in their respective age categories with strong performances. Robin Og will be back in action next weekend at the National Senior Indoor Championships in Abbotstown and is showing great form ahead of it.
Sunday saw a trio of gold medals achieved by the ever-consistent John Fitzpatrick Jr when taking the honours at 60m Hurdles, High Jump and Shot Put. There were middle distance successes with double gold for Emma Brennan at 800m and 1500m while Rian McCaffrey also enjoyed top spot on the podium for the 1500m. Marc Galligan claimed gold in the 60m Hurdles while Oisín Dillon won silver in the 800m in a personal best time. Also achieving silver was Holly Rogers in the Senior 60m while placing fourth in the U18 60m saw Aibhe Foley claim her spot at Nationals.
Sam Davis leaped to bronze in the U14 Long Jump recording a personal best too in the process. He also achieved Nationals qualification in the 60m Hurdles and High Jump with fourth place finishes on a super day of competition for him. There were Shot Put bronze medal successes for Kevin Og Murphy and Kelly Davis with Kelly also setting a new best distance with her longest effort.
Both days had plenty of excellent performances by our athletes. Saturday’s action saw Aoife Smith, Mollie Sheridan, Dean Mulleady, Cian Geoghegan, Philip Davis, Madeline Farrell, Muireann Foley and Tabita Kukier take in a variety of events across the sprints and jumps with many new personal bests set. At the middle distances, Lucyann Finn and Jamie McCaffrey gave it their all to place well in the 600m while Julie Taitt narrowly missed out on a Nationals spot when placing an excellent fifth in the 800m.
