May 4, 2011 [Noel Guiden] – (Updated May 6, 2011) At tonight`s Dublin Graded Meet in Irishtown Tomas Rauktys got his 2011 season off to a record breaking start. Tomas won tonight`s Shot Put with 16.83m breaking Martin Nutty`s Clonliffe club record which has stood since 1981 by well over a meter. Tomas adds the shot record to the discus club record set last year. Tonight he also threw the discus 49.36m to take a double win in the throws. Safari Aketch was 6th in the discus (30.73)
On the track Michael McDiarmada ran superbly in the 10,000 Dublin Championships recording an excellent PB of 31:16.17 taking 7th place in a top class field, the best in a Dublin Championship over this distance in many a year.
A PB also for Snezhana Bechtina in the 200m of 26.11, finishing in 2nd place. Young Stuart Roche ran 23.08 in placing 6th in the mens 200 A.
In the middle distance races Stephen Harkness ran 4.06 in the 1500m. A great run also in the 1500 from Conor McGuinness with a time of 4.07 taking a massive 9 seconds off his PB. Andrew Jenkinson also ran a PB (4.09.02) winning the B race and a great run also from Brian Tobin (4.10.26) just on Jenko`s tail in his first track race for some 10 years! Joseph Cooper ran 4.22.54 and Philip O`Doherty recorded 4.32.83.
Eleanor Alexander was 3rd in the 1500 with 4.37.03. (more updates to follow..)
Further afield, Gary O’Hanlon had his first race back since his exploits at the Euro Clubs XC in Milan 3 months ago when retaining the Dundalk Half Marathon crown in 72.30. With a half way split mathching last years time of 35.48 mins to the second, his time was only 12 seconds slower than the 2010 winning time.