National u/20 & u/23 T&F 2024 (3rd Aug)

Mullingar had a small group of seven athletes competing in Tullamore on Saturday 3rd August at the National u/20 and u/23 T&F Championships, amassing an impressive tally of four medals.

First into action was Aisling Lane in the u/20 women 3,000m walk where she hit the front after 800m and with a dominant solo effort thereafter she powered to victory in a new PB of 14:13.04, well clear of second place. In the u/20 men 5,000m walk, Andrew Glennon kept pace for the early laps with the silver medal winner at the recent European u/18 Championships, Seamus Clarke (Moy Valley AC), but couldn’t sustain the effort and had to settle for 2nd in the finish, coming home in 23:00.64. Following him in was his brother, John Glennon, finishing in 3rd place (24:43.74) after battling the rest of the field for most of the race but pulling clear and finishing very strong over the last two laps.

Colin P Smith ran with intent from the start of the u/23 men 800m, settling on the shoulder of the leader from the outset. When the final push for home came with 200m to go the pack closed in and he lost a few places around the final bend, but rallied in the home straight to finish very strongly in a very close finish with less than one second separating the top five, Colin crossing the line just out of the medals in 5th place. He deserved more from the race but can take consolation from finishing in a very good 1:55.21.

Aimee Wallace was the pre-race favourite in the u/20 women 1,500m as the fastest Irish athlete over the distance in both 2023 and 2024. Aimee confidently moved to the front at the start and led every step of the race to claim the National title. She held a commanding lead with 200m to go and despite experiencing cramp in the final stages she had enough in hand to take the title in 4:28.93 and add to the Mullingar medal total. This rounded off a great week for Aimee who had competed in the Athletics Northern Ireland Open Meeting at the Mary Peters Track in Belfast on the Thursday evening before (1st August) where she recorded a personal best of 2:09.92 for 800m, a big 3 second improvement. We ended the day with the u/20 men 5,000m where Conor Sherwin and Ross Killalea toed the line. Both battled really well but finished just out of the medals, Conor in 4th place (15:55.89) and Ross in 5th place (16:07.75) but top marks for effort [ML/JR/GD].