National Juvenile Relays & National “B” T&F 2024 (20th July)
The National Juvenile Relays and National “B” T&F Finals were held together in Tullamore on Saturday 20th July. It was warm but despite long periods of drizzle on and off during the day, with the occasional downpour, there was no dampening the spirits of what was the biggest entry ever from Mullingar, a total of 21 athletes, who competed brilliantly across a range of events, winning two relays, but special mention to our field event athletes who won three medals, not something we often see for Mullingar.
The u/13 girls 4x100m team of Katie Bohan, Lily McDonald, Penny Bohan and Clodagh Keane combined well as a unit and gave a spirited effort in their heat but it wasn’t enough to advance to the final. In the u/18 boys 4 x 400m, Kyle Faherty stormed from the blocks, quickly breaking down the stagger on the teams outside him and after a terrific lead leg, handed over well clear to Luke O’Leary who charged around the track to increase the lead even further to hand over to Jamie Wallace. Better known as a middle-distance runner, Jamie was up against a strong seasoned 400m runner who closed the lead down but Jamie never let up and wouldn’t surrender the lead, handing the baton over to Conor Liston in the lead for the final leg, which he executed brilliantly, pulling comfortably clear to bring the team home in first place in 3 minutes 29.52 seconds, just a little over a second outside the Championship Record. Not content with their u/18 victory, the same quartet returned in the afternoon to contest the u/19 boys 4 x 400m. Competing against older opposition, the team had to work hard on tired legs but another strong start by Kyle, followed by an astonishing second leg by Luke that swept Mullingar into the lead, and with Jamie and Conor leaving nothing behind and holding their place, the team was victorious again, winning in 3:33.50 to secure their second set of All-Ireland gold relay medals.
In the “B” T&F, a number of young Mullingar athletes contested the very competitive sprint heats. Cillian Gavin and Cillian Martyn (u/12 boys 60m), Liadan Gavin and Clodagh Keane (u/13 girls 80m) where both finished strongly in fourth place in their respective heats, Aoibhe Martyn (u/14 girls 80m) who just missed a place in the final by a mere three hundredths of a second, Chloe Duggan (u/15 girls 100m) and Cian Hyland (u/16 boys 100m).
Moving to the middle-distance races, Katie Bohan and Penny Bohan competed well in the u/12 girls 600m but finished out of the medals. No luck either for Conor Gavin in the u/12 boys 600m despite a strong fifth place finish in his heat. We had four girls competing in the u/13 girls 600m, with the medals decided on the fastest times over the three races. Chloe Bell finished second in her race, 4th place overall, Amelie Kelly was third in her race, 5th overall, and Clodagh Keane and Mina Sheridan also ran very well in their races. Daniel Horohoe put in a good performance and though he finished out of the medals, he finished strongly in the u/15 boys 800m.
No medals on the track, but our field event athletes were in sparkling form. Despite two fouls in the u/14 boys shot, Seth Walsh held his nerve and launched the shot out to 9.00m on his third and final attempt to win by a significant margin and secure the gold medal. It was gold too for Chloe Bell in the u/13 girls long jump, leaping to 4.10m in her final jump to move from fourth to first. Mina Sheridan also competed in the u/13 long jump and was delighted to be competing in a National event. Donnacha Doyle was in great form in the u/13 boys high jump and all his hard work in training paid off as he leaped to a terrific bronze medal. Cian Hyland put together an excellent series of jumps in the u/16 boys long jump to finish an excellent 5th place, not far off the medal places.