Leinster Combined Events 2023 (10th June)

It was overcast but mild and humid with only the occasional light rain shower in Tullamore on Saturday 10th June, reasonably good conditions for the Leinster Combined Events. Aidan O’Donoghue competed in the master competition, which was a Pentathlon comprising long jump, javelin, 200m, discus and 1,500m.

Starting off slowly with a below par performance by his own standards in the long jump, Aidan was in second place after the first event. Confident of pulling back points in the javelin, Aidan was delighted to launch the javelin out to close to his personal best, which put him into the lead in the competition by 91 points. His next event was his first competitive race over 200m and even though his lead was reduced to 30 points, he was happy to have got through the race without injury. Throwing near his personal best in the discus he increased his lead again to 129 points, giving him a good cushion going into the fifth and final event, the 1,500m. Combined event athletes dread the 1,500m at the end of a long day of competition but Aidan dug deep and was glad to have the 129 point cushion as he saw his lead shrink to just 20 points by the end, but this was enough to win the Leinster title.