AAI National Indoor League 2022 – Round 1 (9th Jan)

Big 1,500m personal best for Colin D Smith

The 2022 Indoor season commenced on Sunday 9th January at the National Indoor Arena in Abbotstown, Dublin with the first round of the AAI National Indoor League, which included a number of guest events for athletes of Clubs that didn’t enter teams. Colin D Smith and Colin P Smith both competed in the high quality open 1,500m A race, which featured three athletes who represented Ireland at last season’s European u/23 Track Championships.

Colin D Smith finished an excellent third place in a time of 3:48.95, which was an improvement of nine seconds on his previous best. This is a huge progression from Colin and firmly establishes him now as one of the leading u/23 middle distance runners in Ireland. Over the coming weeks Colin will return to race 800m, which has always been his preferred event and we hope to see further improvement there also.

Colin P Smith was one of the youngest athletes in the field and he opened his season with a fifth place finish in a time of 4:01.73. He will also benefit greatly from the experience and can look forward to the remainder of the indoor season with confidence.

Master athlete Aidan O’Donoghue used the open long jump to get in some early season competition ahead of the National Masters Indoors at the end of January and was very happy to improve on his personal best for the event.