Week ending Saturday 18th June
European 1,500m Standard for Diarmuid Fagan
The Leevale AC Track & Field meeting took place at MTU in Cork in windy conditions last Sunday. For Diarmuid Fagan it was a day to remember, as he ran an eight second personal best to record a win in the 1,500m in 3 minutes 54.25 seconds. Most importantly, this secured a qualification standard for the European Under 18 T&F Championships, which will be held in Jerusalem in July.
Diarmuid showed great maturity to sit behind the pacemaker and some of his more experienced rivals on the opening laps before confidently moving up as the race progressed. His reputation as a fast last lap finisher is growing and once again, he produced a huge effort to win in a time that had him almost three seconds inside the European Under 18 qualification mark.
It’s been a breakthrough few weeks for Diarmuid, who last weekend won the Irish Schools 5,000m. Diarmuid is a very talented young athlete who has shown great commitment and dedication to the sport all year. He can look forward to going from strength to strength as the season continues.
National 5 Mile individual and team honours
The Irish Runner 5 Mile, incorporating the AAI National 5 Mile Championships, took place last Sunday morning in the Phoenix Park. This was the second instalment of the Athletics Ireland Race Series. The weather was very mixed in the days leading up to the day and it was no surprise that just as the more than 760 competitors took to the start line, a fresh shower of rain fell, but it failed to dampen the spirits of those taking on the tough Phoenix Park hilly course. Thankfully, conditions improved during the race and the weather changed to shine by the finish and overall, conditions were better than expected given the recent weather.
Among the big entry was a number of Mullingar’s finest master athletes, led home by Eddie Newman finishing well up in a terrific forty third place overall in 28 minutes 25 second, winning the National bronze medal in his master category. Eddie was followed by Stephen Naughton (30:48), Pauric Brady (31:12), Linda Cunningham (36:27) a very creditable fifth in her master category, Emer O’Hanlon (36:40), Caroline Mullen (37:38), Brigid McCabe (37:44) winning the gold medal in her master category, Avril Keane (38:42) and Nicky McCabe (38:46) winning the silver in his master category. Of note is that medal winners aside, all the Mullingar athletes placed very well in their respective master categories, all in the top twenty, and in fact, most in the top ten, so these were fantastic performances in a National Championship. Reflecting the strong individual performances, the team of Emer, Caroline and Brigid were delighted to place second master women over 50 Club and the master men placed a very creditable sixth Club.
All eyes now turn to the final instalment of the 2022 Athletics Ireland Race Series, with the Irish Runner 10 Mile Race, incorporating the National Championships, taking place on July 10 in the Phoenix Park.
Leinster Juvenile Relays
Not an event that Mullingar teams generally compete in, but last Sunday we had one team in action at the Leinster Juvenile Relays, which were held in a blustery and at times showery Le Cheile AC grounds in Leixlip. With three heats of the under 13 girls 4x100m, qualification for the final was always going to be difficult. Drawn in the outside lane 8 of the third and final heat, the Mullingar team of Chloe Duggan, Aobh Smith, Beibhinn O’Reilly and Casey O’Sullivan gave a spirited performance and while they didn’t advance to the final, can hold their heads high on a job well done and there’s no doubt but we’ll see these girls double down in training eager to have another shot in a relay as soon as they can.
Harriers on the road
The thunderstorms in the Midlands earlier in the day last Friday cleared by the evening, no doubt to the relief of Naomh Mhuire AC who organised the Daingean 5k (Ambrose Hickey Memorial) and to the big entry of nearly 300 runners that signed up to race. It turned out a fine evening for running and everyone avoided the heavy showers during the race. James Keegan came through very strong to finish third in an impressive 15 minute 47 seconds, with Kedagh Geoghegan finishing in tenth place in 16 minutes 42 seconds, both expressing satisfaction afterwards with their results, which will set them up nicely for the “Michael Manning Memorial” Dunshaughlin 10k this coming Saturday evening, one of the highlight races on the road race calendar.
Also taking place last Friday evening, the Trim AC “Braveheart 5k” at the Porchfields in Trim attracted an excellent 400 runners to the start line of a race along the banks of the historic River Boyne, taking the runners among one of the finest collections of medieval monuments in Ireland. This is not an easy course, and the blustery conditions didn’t help, but displaying no difficulty with it and finishing well up in fifth place was Gerard Gavin in 17 minutes 35 seconds to win his master age category, followed by Susan Glennon in 19 minutes 41 seconds, fourth woman finisher, then Callum Costello in 20 minutes 38 seconds, third junior man, easing back to racing after a long layoff due to injury and happy with his race, then Linda Cunningham in 23 minutes 2 seconds, with Declan Costello in 26 minutes 28 seconds completing the Mullingar group.
Cork City Marathon & Half Marathon – corrections
In last week’s report on the Cork City Marathon, we never recorded that Mary Stuart’s time of 3 hours 20 minutes 7 seconds and Joan Hickson’s time of 3 hours 51 minutes 26 seconds were both personal best times. We also forgot about the Cork Half Marathon that was held on the same day, where there was a huge entry of over 5,400 and finishing strongly and well up was Stephen Shanahan in an excellent 1 hour 24 minute 7 seconds. Very well done to Mary, Joan and Stephen.
Leinster Juvenile T&F
Leinster track and field action for 2022 concludes this coming week-end with the Leinster Juvenile under 14 to under 19 T&F and the remaining under 12 and under 13 T&F events taking place in Tullamore. Mullingar has 35 athletes entered in 68 individual events across a wide range of disciplines – from short sprints to 3,000m steeplechase, race walk, sprint hurdles, long jump and javelin, so we’ll be very busy keeping track of how everyone is getting on and we wish them all the very best of luck.
Check the Club’s website at www.mullingarharriers.com or its Facebook page for all the latest news.
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