Feb 20, 2011 [Jeremy Lyons] Brian Gregan totally dominated today Mens 400m Final winning the race by over two seconds. Gregan clocked 47.01 and looked seriously impressive in doing it. Gregan looked calm and focused beforehand with most of the nervous action in the front row seats down the back straight where Coach Shields was nervously twitching trying to get comfortable in his seat. Gregan, drawn in the outside lane 4, took the race by the scruff of the neck and went through 200m in 22.47. He powered down the backstraight the second time around and was strong to the line and won with a massive gap to second. Gregan now heads to Paris for the European Indoors. Ciaran Mackey made it a Clonliffe double of sorts by taking the B Final in 50.62.
Marcin Klinkosz cleared 2.00m for the first time in a Clonliffe vest and was an excellent third place. Afterwards Marcin said “more to come” and reckons he can go higher come the summer as the jumping conditions were not great today.
The Mens 60m had three Clonliffe men in the semi-finals. Danny Kavanagh was the man to watch going in but in the shape of his life he false started and the ‘one false start’ rule saw him thrown out. Conor Coleman and Patrick O’ Conner also failed to progress but with Keith Pike and Stuart Roche doing well in the Dublin Indoors this week the mens 4 x 100 squad is starting to show real depth.
The Men’s 60m Hurdles saw Conor McCrossan and Chris Minn in the same Semi-Final and while neither progressed to the final unoffical times suggest they both got PBs.
Conor Healy finished 8th in the 1500m in 3:57 and while disappointed afterwards said ‘its more about the outdoors’ and he can now focus on being ready for the early summer races.
Finally, our sole woman competing today, Snezana Bechtina, ran a huge PB in the Womens 200m to take the B Final and 5th overall in 26.27. She has shown grown improvements in the past few weeks so it was great to see her get further reward today.
All in all a decent championships with two Golds and two bronze.