Sean
Connolly retained the Raheny 5 title on last Sunday week with a
comfortable 10sec gap on the host club runners Mick Clohisey and last
years runner up Mark Kirwan. Davy Byrne was the next Tallaght man to
finish in 16th place overall with John Stokes next,
followed by Vivian O’ Hanlon, Dave Meehan, Terry Fayne, Donal
Sheridan and Jim Dwyer. Jaqui Boyle took 2nd place in the
Vets category after she was the 31st (33.17) of the 490
women to finish in the record field of 1600 competitors. Sharon Tighe
(33.37) was our next lady to finish, only 6 places behind and Roisin
O’ Hanlon, a few places further back was the first junior lady to
cross the line, securing the junior title for the 2nd year
in succession. Martina Farrell (38.32) also finished well up in the
large field.
Elsewhere
on the same weekend Tomas Fitzpatrick recorded a new meet record when
winning the 1500m title at the Leinster Indoor Championships in Nenagh
in a time of 3.57. This was on the back of a p.b. of 8.27 he set in a
3,000m contest a week earlier at the same venue, where he also
combined with David Somerville and Sean Fitzpatrick to take 4th
in the 800m team contest.
Added
to the recent 2nd team placing for our ladies in the Meet
and Train cross country league, some more of our athletes have done
quite well in the last few weeks in a number of other competitions
such as the Dublin Masters Cross Country Championships at Tymon Park
where Vivian O’ Hanlon took silver in the O/55 category whilst Jaqui
Boyle, winner of a bronze team medal for Dublin in the National Novice
Cross Country Championships in December last showed she had retained
her form well after she finished 7th overall, securing her
place on the Dublin team for the Nationals in Roscommon on 21st
of February.
A number of
our juveniles also did well in the recent West Leinster schools cross
country championships in the Phoenix Park where Brian Connolly won the
senior contest and Keith Doherty took silver after a very close finish
in the junior event, with John Daly finishing just missing on
qualification by one place in the same race. Philip Murray finished a
good 11th in the Inter category, securing qualification
with Sean Mc Cabe a few places further back.
Our juveniles
will be continuing their preparations for the Dublin Juvenile Indoor
T&F Championships which will take place in Santry on 19th/20th
and 27th of February. They will be particularly looking
forward to competing on Sunday 28th Feb and Friday evening
5th March and Saturday 6th March, when our own
track will host, for the first time ever an athletic T&F
Championships in Tallaght.