On Saturday April 7th slightly late in the season due to the snow storms the rescheduled Day 1 All Ireland Juvenile Relays & Field events too place in the always AIT Athlone.
Our First competitor of the day was Philip Thornton in the U/17 Boys in the 5Kg Shot Put. Philip scored in all 6 throws and finished in 3rd place overall with a huge throw of 12.41m. This is a huge achievement for Philip who relatively new to this event. Philip has been working hard with team and coach Declan and we will continue to see him improve. Well done Philip on a wonderful achievement of Bronze medal in the All Ireland Finals
Next up were our U/14 Girls of Sinead Magee, Aleah Kelly, Aideen Reilly and Birthday girl Sophie Dolan. A big happy 13th teenage Birthday to Sophie who on her Birthday was out competing for the club as usual.
These girls have been very tight over the last few years and have always qualified through Leinster for both Indoor and Outdoor relay competitions. We have seen them from the age of 8 and now we are witnessing them grow into teenagers are continue to develop as Athletes.
In the heats the girls ran in heat 3 which was the fastest heat of the day and qualified with a wonderful time of 1.55.15 which seeded them as 5th for the final.
In the final the girls were in the tough lane 2 and ran wonderful final with an overall finish place of 5th place with a time of 1.55.27. While there is no medal for the girls they can be proud about hitting a back to back 1.55 mark in the same hour which is an PB improvement from their Leinster time of 1.56. We look forward to the outdoors over the coming weeks and have to say a big well done to our U/15 Relay girls who are now classed as the 5th fasted U/14 girls in Ireland.
Next event was Long Jump in the U/14 girls for Aideen Reilly but as she was lining up for the Relay Final, she was called for her Long Jump. Aideen again had to qualify through Leinsters to make the All Ireland LJ final. Aideen has been impressing her coaches in training lately demonstrating that she is well inside medal position.
Aideen ran 2 X 27 Sec 200m runs in the relays within 60 min and this had an adverse effect for her Long Jump. Aideen ran her heart out and choose to put all her effort into the team relay event which had consequences for her LJ leaving her outside the medals. It was a big ask for her and the timing of the LJ immediately after her 200m final was unfortunate leaving no time for her to rest and recover for this event. Well done Aideen and we are sure to see you back in the LJ finals in the T&F Outdoors.
More photos on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/…/151447904…/albums/72157694667714904
