At the AAI Juvenile Championships held yesterday in Tullamore, Clonliffe had a 1-2 finish in the Under 19 Boys Javelin. Ryan Whelan’s throw of 51.70m was just over 10m better than his teammate Stephen Bailey’s 41.60m. In the Under 16 equivalent Conor Byrne and Andrej Liadov finished 5th and 6th with distances of 41.03m and 37.96m respectively.
On the track there was great success, Adam O`Brien won his first National title a superb final lap in the U/16 3000 propelled him from 3rd to 1st in 9.29.66, Sean Carrig was 5th in 9.54.58. Joseph Hession won U/15 800 bronze with a new pb of 2.06.96, Darren Redmond was 6th (2.09.83). Seanna Reilly took U/18 silver in the 400 in an excellent 58.82, Ciara Lynott placed 8th (67.36). Other clonliffe: girls U/17 800 5th Sally Ahern 2.27.14, 7th Hope Saunders 2.29.35, girls U/18 3000 11th Lily Cusack 12.42.82, Cathal Doyle 6th U/17 3000 (9.41.12), girls U/13 600 11th Hope Sumola (1.57.89)
Amy Connolly was 14th in the Under 14 Girls Long Jump with a distance of 4.21m. Our top Long Jumper Megan Comber was 8th in the Girls Under 18 100m final in a time of 13.32.
At the Crusaders run GV Ryan meeting held yesterday evening in Morton Stadium Aaron Hanlon had a great run in the Men’s 3000m. Never short of bravery, Aaron hung on during a tough last 1000m to finish with a time of 8.29.69 and a new personal best time. Also in action was Becky Woods, who finished 2nd in the Women’s 1500m in a time of 4.31.49. Sinead Hartnett ran 5.05.09 in the same race. Mark McDonald was in the ‘B’ 800m and with a storming last 100m time of 1.53.70
Paul Whelan was in fine form running well in both the 100m in 11.03 and 200m in 22.06. Stuart Roche also lined up in the 100m and continued to show good consistency in this season’s form with a time of 11.53.
Brian MacMahon competed at yesterday’s European Mountain Running Championships in Borovets, Bulgaria. Finishing in 58th position Brian was understandably disappointed in the result. However, with the World Championships still to come later in the Summer, there’s no doubt Brian will be there to make amends.
In the British League held in London Kris Vaulters ran a season’s best time of 1.52.45 for second place. London based Eoin Pierce ran 14.59.30 to finish 4th in the British League in Sheffield, the venue of Niall Bruton’s World University Games gold medal of 1991.
Meanwhile at this year’s WUG Championship’s held in Kazan, Russia, Brian Gregan got his medal hunt off to a great start by winning his opening heat this morning in a time of 46.68, the 2nd fastest qualifier for the semi-finals run at 16.40 Irish time tomorrow.
Finally, on a sadder note, Joe Dempsey, a member of many great Clonliffe Cross Country teams in the late 1940’s and 1950’s passed away on Thursday. May he rest in Peace.