Leinster Junior, Senior & Masters Indoors 2023 (11th Mar)

The Leinster Junior, Senior and Masters Indoors took place on Saturday 11th March at the National Indoor Arena in Dublin and our master athletes absolutely stole the show for Mullingar.

First into action was Pauline Troy who competed in the Master 1,500m. Battling hard over seven laps, Pauline was rewarded for her efforts with first place in her category and she was delighted to receive the Leinster gold medal. Next up was the race walks, where Colm Walsh looked strong in the Master 3,000m walk to win his category with ease in a fine time only three seconds off the Championship record. Sean McMullin used the Master 3,000m walk as part of his final preparations for the European Masters Indoors in Poland later in the month, winning his category comfortably as expected, to win another Championship gold medal.

Among the masters, Kyle Faherty was our only junior athlete and he was using the event as race preparation for the All-Ireland Juvenile Indoors in early April. Finishing third in his heat of the Junior 200m saw him qualify for the final. Running in the tight inside lane in the final was always going to be difficult but Kyle gave his very best and though he finished out of the medals, this was his first Leinster junior final and he will have learned so much from the experience of competing at this level.

Aidan O’Donoghue had a very busy day. He had entered the Masters High Jump, Shot Putt, 60m Hurdles and Pentathlon. In the pentathlon, performance in 60m hurdles, long jump, shot putt, high jump and 1,000m run equate to points and the athlete with the highest points total at the end of the five events is the winner. However, on the day it was agreed that he could double up the individual events with the pentathlon, so he wouldn’t have to compete twice, with his performance in the pentathlon events counting in the individual events too. Aidan’s campaign got underway with the 60m hurdles, which he won comfortably to take the early lead on points. Fourth in the long jump saw his lead reduced, but he was still leading overall. Strong wins in the shot putt and high jump saw Aidan going into the final event, the 1,000m run, with a big lead and though he finished fourth in the run, he had more than enough of a buffer to place first overall by a good margin and win the pentathlon gold in a new personal best of 2,464 points. His performances in the hurdles and high jump won him gold and in the shot putt won him silver, so he ended the day with three Leinster titles and a second place.

Tom Walsh competed in the Master Weight for Distance, where he made throwing the heavy 28 pound weight look easy, improving with each of the four rounds to win by a big margin in a new Championship Record of 7.71m. This was an excellent record breaking performance by one of our finest master athletes. Our final athlete in action was Linda Cunningham who blasted around the tight two laps of the Master 400m to finish second and was delighted to win the silver medal and end an excellent medal-filled day for Mullingar.