Sunday February 5th was a
busy day for Tallaght Athletic Club with our first report coming
from the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow. This splendid venue was packed to
the rafters for the Bank of Scotland Under 17 and Under 20
Championships. Robert Fitzsimons was first into the fray when he
stepped up two years to compete in the U20 1500M final. The field
of 8 went off at a blistering pace and Roberts split time of two
minutes flat at 800M was unfortunately too fast for the young
athlete and he finished in a creditable 5th place in a time of
4.17.
The Clubs only other representative at this competition was Brian
Gregan who went with high hopes of winning the U17 400M. Brian
made his intentions clear in the heat when he came home 10 metres
clear of his rivals in a personal best time of 51.3. This time was
the fastest qualifying time from all of the heats so Brian lined
up with confidence for the final and smashed his personal best
performance again when he won convincingly in 50.40. To his dismay
however he was disqualified for a technical fault in breaching his
lane. Both athletes will have learned from their debut visit to
this venue and no doubt will make their mark there at the next
visit.
Nearer to home a large contingent of our senior athletes and a few
juveniles travelled to the North side of the city to compete in
the Raheny road race festival.
Brothers Sean and Peter Fitzsimons, our only competitors in the
juvenile events were first to toe the start line, and Sean can be
well pleased with his performance when he finished in the top
third of a massive field of competitors in the 800M race, whilst
Peter, competing in the 1 mile event established a gap on the
large field of competitors along with three other athletes and
maintained his position to take an excellent third place podium
position with a P.B of 4.34.
The large contingent of our senior athletes who made themselves
available to run the feature “Raheny 5” mile event afforded us the
luxury of running 2 male senior, 2 male vets teams and both senior
and vets female teams, amongst the large field of almost 1500
competitors and all contributed to an improved overall performance
by the club.
Our two male senior teams, Keith Sherlock, Nilto Demorez, Roan
Kearns and James Crowley (team A) and Colm Barcoe, Alan Lawlor,
Peter O’ Farrell and Frank Ferguson (team B) all ran well under
the 30 mark with some running under 28 and 27 minutes for the
distance and most achieving personal bests. Unfortunately the
combined finishing positions of either team didn’t materialise in
team prizes in this very competitive senior category. There was
however some joy in the senior ladies category with Katharina
Baldinger leading home Laura Mc Donnell and Aileen Connolly to
take the 5th team prize and all three were pleased to have run
close to 31mins.
The vets teams fared better in their category with Niall Coppinger
leading home Derek Quinn, Dessie Shorten and Bill Murphy to 2nd
team prize and Anna King, Deirdre Pitts, Liz Conroy and Maura
Kinahan doing likewise in the female section.
Our second vets team, Gary Clarke, Christy Reilly Martin Haddock
and Vivian O’ Hanlon all ran well on the day, as did Ray
Fitzsimons and John Sexton.
Caroline Dollard, who was unfortunately omitted in error from the
team, pulled off a great individual performance in her first
outing for the club, as the 10th female finisher overall and Frank
Ferguson maintained his great form in the individual vets category
when taking 3rd prize in the O/50 section.