National Juvenile T&F 2024 – Day 3 (27th July)
All-Ireland Gold for Lily Walsh
Lily Walsh crowned a hugely successful outdoor T&F season on Saturday 27th July on Day 3 of the National Juvenile T&F in Tullamore with a superb victory in the u/14 girls 1,500m. Winning the Leinsters with a new Championship Record saw Lily line up as a solid pre-race favourite, but always with an eye on the indoor 800m Champion, Nellie Bateman (Belgooly AC) who was certain to feature strongly, and that’s exactly how it turned out. Right from the gun, Lily went to the front and holding the inside line she controlled the race, setting a fast pace. Maintaining her place at the front for all but a short period, Lily continued to control the race and was ideally placed when the final push for home came with 200m to go. Rounding the final bend and into the home straight, Lily and Nellie were locked together as both sprinted furiously for the finish. It was neck and neck all the way but Lily just had the edge at the finish, dipping at the line to win in a photo finish, just three hundredths of a second ahead, and was absolutely delighted to win gold and her first outdoor National track title.
Grace Byrne kept herself in contention for honours in the u/19 girls 1,500m but just couldn’t quite reproduce the finish that won her bronze in the 3,000m the week before and despite a great effort over the final lap had to settle for 4th place, just out of the medals. In the u/19 boys 1,500m, Pablo Lozano went out hard from the gun and was right up with the leaders when disaster struck after 500m, as he suddenly stopped and pulled off the track. He was feeling some discomfort in his Achilles, so wisely stopped rather than risk further injury. Hopefully it’s not too serious and we wish Pablo a speedy recovery. Meanwhile, Conor Sherwin had settled nicely into his race and looked strong and smooth in the early laps. However, as the race approached the business end so to speak, Conor was unable to stay with the pace and was disappointed to finish down the field out of the medal places.
Earlier in the day, Finn Roddy competed in the heats of the u/17 boys 200m but despite running faster than in the Leinsters it wasn’t quite enough to qualify from the very competitive heats, and he narrowly missing out on a place in the final, but top marks for effort.
Lily Walsh’s gold medal adds to the bronze she won over 800m two weeks before and brings the total number of medals won by Mullingar athletes over three days of individual Championships and one day of relays to seven, four gold, one silver and two bronze, which are very good results for Mullingar.
Apart from those that still have Regional and National Community Games T&F Finals, the outdoor T&F season is over for most of our juvenile members and they can now take a welcome break before returning to training in a few weeks to get ready for the cross country season that starts in late September [GD].