It was a pretty successful opening day for Clonliffe at the 123.ie National Senior track & Field championships held in blustery conditions in Morton Stadium today. The clubs athletes took silvers in the opening and closing events today. Simon Galligan took hammer silver with a best of 63.86 and then in the last event of the programme the 4 x 100 men’s team of Keith Pike, Conor Wilson, Craig Duffy and Chris Sibanda also took silver in a tight finish behind Tallaght AC in a time of 41.93.
There were excellent performances by the club’s athletes in the qualifying rounds today, in particular it was great to see Brian Gregan back in harness running his 1st national in several years winning his 400 heat in 47.95 and qualifying for tomorrow’s final. Clodagh Dunbar had an excellent day, earlier in the morning she finished 3rd in the 200 heat in a time of 26.56 to qualify for the final and then in the afternoon ran a PB of 25.96 into a minus 2 headwind to finish 7th.
Newly minted Clonliffe Harrier Jessica Tappin was a class apart in the 400 hurdles recording the fastest time of the day by a margin of some 2 seconds to win her heat in a time of 58.80, shattering the club record by a massive 4 seconds and will go into tomorrow’s final as favourite. Leah Bergin also qualified for the final in the 400 as she ran an impressive 55.79, Anna Heavey was 6th in that heat in 16.32. Also successfully negotiating the heats was Laura Tuite in her 1st ever National senior, finishing 7th in the 1500 (4.48.30) and qualifying for tomorrow’s final.
Defending 1500 champion Cathal Doyle causally qualified for tomorrow’s final finishing 3rd in his heat in 4.01.49, Jack Maughan was 9th in his heat in 4.07.70. In the 800 Oren Kenny was 6th in 2.02.24.
In the 200s Aaron Tierney Smith was 3rd in his heat in 23.07, Pascal Touche was 4th in his (23.84) and Michael Deady 6th in his heat (24.65), unfortunately all 3 went out in the heats.
Finally Rolus Olusa finished in that unlucky 4th position in the 110 hurdles final recording a time of 15.57.
The action tomorrow gets underway at around 1 PM and continue throughout the course of the day – no doubt the Clonliffe athletes competing tomorrow would appreciate their clubmates support so please come along to Morton Stadium.
