Monday, March 19, 2018

PBS ALL THE WAY IN ATHLONE


When you get to the biggest stage of the year so far, delivering your best isn't always easy but we had a deluge of personal bests at the Irish Life Health Athletics Ireland Juvenile Indoors in Athlone on Sunday.

Gerard Murtagh came closest to a medal when he finished a superb fourth in the U14 60m Final but he smashed his personal best twice and broke the eight second barrier for the first time with a 7.99 second clocking in the Final for a major breakthrough.


Toyosi Fagbo defied illness over the last three weeks to smash his personal best in the U15 60m Final, his time of 7.58 taking him to fifth place and 0.11 faster than his Connacht winning time - and all without taking a step in training for three weeks after he fell ill following the Connachts! Quite an amazing performance.



Alannah McGuinness showed a lot of guts too to crack the eight second barrier for the first time with a 7.99 second clocking in the U17 Girls 60m heats, quite an amazing performance considering she had a bad fall off her bike on Friday and was running with badly bruised and skinned knees and arms! Quite a determined athlete!

Ellis Conway put in all on the line in the U18 400m, qualifying as one of the fastest losers and getting the unfavourable lane one for the Final. But that didn't deter her as she mixed it up with the leaders before finishing sixth in a time of 60.17, having run 60.34 in the heats.


Clodagh Sheerin also qualified for the U18 60m Final, finishing fourth in her heat in a time of 8.36 and improving to sixth in the final in a time of 8.31 seconds.

Ellie O'Rourke ran a season's best of 5.13.97 in an insanely fast U16 1,500m to take ninth and not far off her outright best, a strong run where the fast early pace took a heavy toll on athletes.





Eoghan Farrell knocked five seconds off his previous best over 1,500m in the U17 heats, running 4.42.03 while while Oisin O’Dowd (7.73), Niall Sheerin (7.89) and Sophie McCabe (8.63) all saw action in the 60m heats.

Shane Finn finished ninth in the U15 Shot with a fine throw of 10.46m with Dara Holmes throwing 7.37m for 12th in the U13 Boys Shot.

There was a little bit of heartache too as Lauren Reynolds had to withdraw from the U16 1,500m after injuring her back in the warm-up, a huge disappointment for a very committed athlete.

Congrats to all our athletes on some great performances. Thanks to all the parents for travelling down with the athletes and Siobhan Whelan, Siobhan McWeeney and Callum Whelan for looking after the gang in Athlone.




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