The first weekend of the All-Ireland juvenile championships
took place in Tullamore on the 2nd and 3rd July. The club
had 4th athletes competing. Doireann and Kevin O’Shea finished a
creditable 6th and 7th respectively in their javelin,
unfortunately both threw well under their personal bests. Isaac Vickers ran a
blistering 800m finishing 2nd. Unfortunately he was exceptionally
unlucky to be disqualified for stepping out of his lane at the very start of
the race but he can still can feel very proud of his time of 2.09 seconds which
would have won the U15 race,
However undoubtedly the star of the weekend was Ryan Vickers
who established himself as one of the rising starts of Irish Athletics. On
Saturday he won the 80 m comfortably despite getting a poor start in the final
knocking a massive .25 of a second off his performance in the Munster
Championships. He followed this up with a very creditable 4th in the
Shot Put. Sunday was the turn of the 600m where he completed a rare double. In
a very tough race he used his sprinting speed to finish 1st, in a
race that was in doubt up to the last 40m. He was agonisingly close to the Irish
record only 6/100th sec outside it.
The following weekend in Tullamore for the All-Ireland
juvenile championships Kevin O’Shea came 2nd in the U14 discus. On Sunday Isaac
Vickers recovered from his disappointment in the 800m last week by winning
silver in the 1500m. Just as impressive was Roisin Daly who knocked the most of
1 second off her best time in qualifying for the 200m final. This was a
tremendous performance by Roisin who is a relative newcomer to the sport.
The final action was in Currow on Tuesday night where Laura
Bradley finished 2nd in the community games marathon finishing the 7K course in
just over 30 minutes. Laura will now represent Kerry in the national finals.
David Kenny represented Ireland in the world championships.
David who finished in the top 30 in last years Olympics is currently ranked in
the top 10 based on this years performances. David was up with the leaders at
the start but the oppressive heat took its toll. It is still a tremendous
honour to represent Ireland at these championships.
The final day of National Juvenile championships in
Tullamore on the 17th, our boys U 14 relay team were competing and
after winning the Munster championships hopes were high they could challenge
for a medal. They won their semi-final finishing just under 52 seconds. The
final was a very tight affair with nothing between a lot of the teams. A very
strong run on the 3rd leg by Conor McCarthy in between 2 brilliant
changeovers left the lads in front but we were just caught on the line by a
very strong Galway side but improved their time again by over ½ second.
Congratulations to Conor McCarthy, Ryan and Isaac Vickers
and Kevin O’Shea.
This was a massive achievement by the 4 of them and the
first National relay medal the club has ever won.
Huge credit must go to Jerome Foley for all his expert
coaching over the last 3 months helping the lads knock over 3 ½ seconds off
their time when winning the Kerry Championships.
The club had 2 athletes competing in the Munster B
championships in Templemore on the 30st and both performed
magnificently.
Fionn Hogan who has improved with every outing so far this
year in the Turbo Javelin, added another 2 1/2 metres to his best in winning
the u 11 event.
Conor McCarthy doubled up in the 80m and 800m finishing 3rd
in both adding to his collection of Munster and All-Ireland medals in the
relay.
Congratulations to both on their wonderful achievement.
The popular Banna run organised by St. Brendan’s AC took
place on Sunday 31st . Brendan Lynch ran an excellent race finishing 13th in just over 40 minutes. Michael O’Connor
finished in just over 47 minutes out of a large field of of over 140 runners.
Cian Hogan finished in 12th position in the 5K run.
The month finished on a sad note with the passing of Eddie
Mulcahy one of the clubs finest athletes. Eddie competed for the club for many
years winning County, Provincial and all Ireland medals
Ar dheis
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