Kerryman Article 15/2/10

The Irish University indoor athletics championships were held last Saturday in Nenagh indoor athletics track.Eilish Fitzpatrick competing for NUIG competed in both the 60m and 200m winning double gold with ease in NUIG college records of 7.73 and 25.85.James Nagle competing for University of Limerick broke the IUAA weight for distance record with a throw of 9.97m and Alan O Connor of Tralee IT finished second in the event with a throw of 9.83m setting a Tralee IT record for the event.Daniel Clifford also of Tralee IT won gold in the shot putt with a personal best of 14.40m.Caoimhe Casey of UCC competed in the 1500m race walk and finished second in a time of  7.33 minutes.Emily Brick also of UCC took part in the 400m and finished in a time of 66.12.

   The Scottish superteams and age group championships were also held over the weekend in Glasgow with a strong Irish contingent present especially from Munster clubs.St Brendans AC had 22 athletes competing and achieving 25 personal bests in a very high standard event.The boys u13 composite superteam of Iarla Courtney,Shane Lowth,Fionan Mackessy St Brendans and Billy Courtney Spa Muckross dominated the Superteams competition from start to finish and took gold with ease scoring over 300 points, more than forty points clear of second place;the team were so dominant they could have skipped the last event the shot putt and still won gold.Highlights were Shane Lowths 8.5 60m sprint,Iarla Courtneys 4.17m long jump,Billy Courtneys 8.7m shot putt and a team 4x200m relay time of 1.58 minutes.Clarence Kennedy again competing two years out of age in the under 20’s destroyed his 60m hurdles personal best when finishing third in 8.77 seconds;for good measure he also finished fifth in the triple jump with a personal best of 12.58 metres and also had a pb of 7.6 in the 60m sprint.Ailbhe Courtney also won bronze in the u20 triple jump with a leap of 10.48m to show she is on the return to form after a short layoff.Other impressive performances came from David Hogan who finished fourth in the u17 800m in a time of 2.10,Michael Grimes fifth in the u17 triple jump,Brendan Dunne 5^th in the u15 shot putt ,Una Marley’s 300m pb of 45.5 and new recruit Edward O Carroll’s impressive runs of 7.5 and 24.2 in his first races over 60m and 200m in the u20 age group also competing two years out of age.Elaine Courtney of Spa Muckross also competed finishing 5^th in the u15 long jump and Kate Boyd of Tralee Harriers competed in the u17 shot putt.

The second leg of the Gneeveguilla ac 5km road race series held in the national park in Killarney last Saturday saw ninty athletes compete which was an increase on the previous week.Ed Murphy of Gneeveguilla ac won the mens event in 16.33 with Arthur Fitzgearld Farranfore mainevalley in second with 16.22 and John Barrett turning back to clock to run a fantastic 16.37 for third.In the womens event Ann Marie Costello Gneeveguilla took victory with ease in 18.57 minutes with Mary O’Connor Riocht in second and Gearldine O’Sullivan Bantry in third.The next leg is again next Saturday at the same venue and time of 11am.