AIT International Grand Prix 2017 (15th Feb)
Stadium records and Irish all-comers records tumbled at the AIT International Grand Prix on Wednesday evening 15th February as the capacity crowd was treated to a fantastic display of World-class athletics.
The evening began with relay races to showcase local underage talent, including a mixed 4x200m for u/13 where Mullingar was invited to enter a team. Callum Costello led off the Mullingar quartet with a fantastic run, handing over in second place to Aimee Wallace, who powered around the tight bends to consolidate the team’s position. Third runner was Philip McCartan who began to eat into the lead as he stormed around the track to hand over to Adele Geoghegan who ran a brilliant anchor leg, closing down on the leader all the time but the line came too soon and Mullingar finished 2nd. This was a great performance by this young team, especially as they are all only u/12 and were giving away a year on the other teams.
Onto the Grand Prix then, where among the big name stars was Christina Manning (USA) who won the 60m hurdles in 7.82 seconds, the second fastest time in the World this year, and in the process relegating the 2012 Olympic champion Sally Pearson (Australia) into third spot, Sean Safo-Antwi (Ghana) who won the 60m in a stadium record of 6.56 seconds, pushing the World indoor bronze medallist Ramon Gittens (Barbados) into second place, but the race that really had the crowd on its feet was the men’s mile where Ryan Gregson (Australia) won in 3:56.49 and the first three men broke four minutes, which is still the benchmark time in World class mile racing.
Our own Vicky Harris qualified comfortably from her heat of the 60m sprint where she lined up against some top-class talent. The final was won by Lekeisha Lawson (USA) in a very swift 7.20 seconds, with Phil Healy (Bandon) third in 7.31 seconds, just one hundredth of a second off the Irish record. Exposure to top class competition like this is what every athlete aspires to and it will stand Vicky in great stead. She was very pleased to be mixing in such company and to have been part of such a great evening’s entertainment.
