Monday, April 08, 2019

Fast times in Athlone


Athlone was definitely the place to be last weekend as the Irish Univerisity Track & Field Championships were held at the outdoor track on Friday and Saturday and the Indoor Arena saw the last day of the National Juvenile Indoor Championships.

We had three members in action on Friday in the Varsities with Eanna Madden running a superb time of 21.67 to win his heat. 

With a slight twinge and very cold conditions, Eanna wisely decided to sit out the final but his time on Friday would have been good enough for a bronze medal.





Cathal McElgunn went out strongly in the Men's 400m, clocking a time of 53.64 to finish fifth in his heat while he also ran a strong first leg for UCD in the 4 x 400m final on Saturday.






Callum Whelan made a return to throwing and despite two marginal fouls in his first two effort, he threw 45.29 to finish ninth overall. Great to see the AIT student back in action.

On Saturday, the Juveniles saw our U12 boys team turn in an exceptional performance to finish seventh overall in the 4 x 200m. Set up by an incredible opening leg from Luke Charles, the team led or were second for most of the first heat before being pipped for third.

Luke's incredible opening leg put the lads in front, Riaghan Guckian was quickly passed but then stuck to the leader and was only a yard or two behind going into the change-over. Alexander Oates, making his debut in Athlone, stormed around the track to put us back in front while Nathan Casey ran a very strong leg and was right up with the winner all the way to the finish line.

To put into context their performance, the lads ran a high 2.09 in the Connacht Finals but ran 2.01.89, eight seconds faster here.

Jack Keenehan completed our weekend line-up as he competed in the U17 Long Jump. His best of 4.78m was down on his previous best but Jack will have learned a lot from the experience and will only get better.

Finally, our U17 Girls team were unable to take part as injury and illness meant we were unable to take to the track. We wish Aine McGwynne a very speedy recovery from her broken wrist and we hope to see her back in action very soon.


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