Curran Takes National Senior Decathlon Title for Tallaght

Patrick Curran put in some great performances to take the National Decathlon Title at the recent Multi Events Championships in Tullamore recently.

The 2010 bronze medallist again competed in 10 track & field contests over the course of two days and accumulated 4,772 which was 443 points clear of his nearest rival the 2010 Champion Ger Cremin, Riocht A.C. who held the lead until the final 3 events the Pole Vault, High Jump and 1500m where Patrick produced two new PB’s in the Pole Vault & Javelin to secure the necessary points to take the title.

In the track contests he won the 1500m (5.00.82) and was second in the 100m (12.14), 400m (54.65), and 110m hurdles (16.95, new P.B.) whilst in the field contests he won both the Pole vault (3.20m, new P.B.) and Long Jump (5.65m) and was second in the High Jump (1.53m), 4th in the Shot Putt (8.33m) and 5th in the Discus (22.17) and in the javelin where he finished 3rd he achieved another P.B of 31.72m.

Elsewhere Sean Connolly ran 26 seconds faster than ever before when he finished 4th in the British 10,000m Championships in a time of 28.36 which was well under the standard of 28.55 set by European Athletics for next years Euro Championships and in the last of the Dublin Graded Meet Series in Santry, Artjom Kutjavin equalled his seasons best for the 800m when he finished 2nd in Grade “A” race 3 in a time of 56.62 whilst Tomas Fitzpatrick finished 5th in 1.57.19 in Grade “A” race 2, and Sean Mc Cabe ran 2.05.15 when he finished 7th in Grade “B”. In the Grade “B” 200m Sean Morris produced a P.B of 23.59 when finishing second.

There was further success for the club in the National Senior T&F Championships at Santry last weekend where European U23 800m finalist Anthony Lieghio took the bronze medal in the 800m after very closely fought contest and although there were high hopes of other medals these did not materialise despite the best efforts of Sean Connolly who tagged the eventual winner Alistar Cragg for most of the 12.5 laps but had to settle for 5th at the finish. It was perhaps the efforts in knocking 26 seconds off his previous best for the 10,000m a week earlier which took its toll.

Tomas Fitzpatrick was another to make a final after he took one of the automatic qualifying places in the 1500m semis on the first day of competition, but over a distance which is perhaps a bit short for his liking, he could only finish 9th in the final which was packed with more seasoned 1500m runners. Michael Gassowski finished 5th overall after he threw 13.80m in the Shot Putt final which was a good result considering this was his first National Final and another improving athlete Artjom Kutjavin bowed out in the heats of the 800m where he finished 6th.

Davy Byrne made his return from injury last weekend in the Streets of Galway 8k where he finished a very respectable 8th in a time of 26.13 whilst Niall Coppinger was awarded 3rd in the O/45 category after he finished 25th overall in the Carlingford 5k on Sunday.