Over the first two days of the National
Juvenile Indoor Track & Field Championships, at Nenagh last weekend, our
ten competitors put in some fine performances against the top athletes
from the four provinces and Dublin, with both Sean Bolger and Anthony
Lieghio delivering exceptional performances to secure medals.
Sean Bolger, the Dublin U19 400m silver medallist was more than pleased
when qualifying through his semi-final on Saturday morning and this
certainly boosted his confidence in the final which was held later in
the day, where he ran exceptionally well to take the bronze medal in a
closely fought race that went all the way to the wire. This was a
particularly good performance, as apart from the Dublin’s he had never
run a 400m contest before.
Prior to this event there was great Tallaght interest in the U19 1500m
contest, with Robert Fitzsimons, Luke Coleman and Anthony Lieghio all
toeing the line for the club in a very competitive contest. As expected
there was always going to be some hustle and bustle in the early part of
the 7.5 lap contest on this sharp track, but as the race progressed
after three laps, some space developed as the field split into two
groups with both Robert and Anthony in the leading group and Luke,
obviously feeling the effects of a recent illness finding the pace a
little too much. As the race unwound Robert led briefly, but his lack of
fitness, due to injury over the past few months had a telling effect and
he dropped to 5th, a position he maintained to the finish. However,
Anthony had a great up and down tussle with two other runners when they
broke away from the main field with a little less than 2 laps to go and
coming off the last bend he was still in contention for gold, but had to
settle for silver behind the worthy, Conor Murphy from Naas A.C. After
coming so close he has vowed to make a bold attempt for Gold when he
lines up for the 800m on April 14th.
Peter Fitszimons contested the U18 1500m and whilst keeping pace with
the leading group over the first 5 laps, he unfortunately lacked the
pace to go with the leaders and had to settle for 5th. Rebecca Game did
likewise in the U17 60m sprint, an event which is too short for her, but
she will no doubt be staking a claim for a medal when she contests the
200m in a few weeks time.
Conor Murray, triple gold medallist in the Dublin Championships, was our
youngest competitor and he was certainly in fine form in his first
National Championships, on the first day finishing 4th in the U12 long
jump final and a few hours later taking a comfortable 2nd place finish
in the 600m semi-final. In the final on day two, he led the field for
two of the three laps, but unfortunately ran out of steam in the last
60m, crossing the line in 5th. He will be looking forward to the 14th
April when he is scheduled to compete in the high jump event, and if
scaling the same height that won him gold in Dublin, he has a great
chance of bringing home a medal.
John Daly was another debutante at Nationals and although he failed to
make the final, he put in a sound performance to finish 5th in his U13
60m hurdles semi-final. At U15 degree Emma Prior stayed in contention in
the high jump competition after clearing two heights, but went out when
unfortunately failing to have a clearance at 1.35. Craig Carty was
unfortunate to miss the call up for the U16 shot putt.