Carraig na bhFear AC – Star Quality in Munster Indoors!

Report by Richard Hawkins

Last weekend a group of Carraig na bhFear AC athletes travelled to Nenagh for the U15 to U19 Munster Indoor Track and Field Championships. It had been some time since our last competitive outing in track and field so no real benchmark on how our athletes would fare at this level of competition, what followed exceeded all expectations with strong performances across the board and some top-drawer results in short sprints that hadn’t been achieved in quite some years!

Aoibhe Dunlea came through heats, semi-finals and final of the girls U15 to win silver in a time of 8:40s, a huge achievement for Aoibhe will progress to the National finals. Aoibhe also qualified for Nationals in the long jump, her best jump of 4.42m taking her into 4th place in a large field of 21 competitors. Congratulations to Aoibhe! Also running well in the 60m were Rebecca McCarthy who progressed to the semi-final stage of the Girls U15 60m with a 9.45s run and Lily O’Keeffe who posted a fast time of 9.30s but unfortunately was in one of the faster qualifying heats. Mary-Kate Dawson progressed to the final of the 60m hurdles but was unable to match her qualifying time of 10.60s in the final. The U15 girls have formidable depth in both sprints and distance events and the team of Lily O’Keeffe, Aoibhe Dunlea, Rebecca McCarthy and Amelia O’Donovan came within 1/100th of a second off qualifying for Nationals in the U15 4 x 200m. The girls ran a superb time of 2:00:12 to finish in joint 5th position overall from 14 teams. Another talented member of the U15 girls’ squad is Hannah Coffey who had a convincing win in the Pole Vault competition with a best clearance of 2.25m.

Another outstanding performance came from Daniel Hogan who produced a dominant performance in the U15 boys long-jump. Daniel had 6 legal jumps, all over 5m and ahead of his nearest rival with a best of 5.42m to claim the gold medal! Daniel also qualified for the final of the 60m finishing in 6th place. Congratulations to Daniel who will compete in the National finals. Well done to Dylan McCarthy who won bronze in the Boys U18 60m hurdles in 11.95s. It was bronze also for Caoimhe Gray-Walsh in the girls U18 800m, a time of 2:33.55 edging her nicely into the medals in a tactical battle. Caoimhe ran 1:07.57 in Heat 2 of the 400m competition which was decided on times from the 4 heats. Abigail Geary ran 8.78s to finish 5th in the final of the girls U18 60m.

There was a return to Tramore Valley Park on Friday 14th for the Munster Schools cross-country championships, thankfully nice weather for the race but heavy rain in the preceding days made for a mudfest! Thankfully for our athletes are well used to training in heavy underfoot conditions and thrived in the competition. Emma Johnson (Scoil Mhuire) was 7th overall in the minor girls race and will be joined in the National finals in Galway by Hannah Coffey (9th) and Allie Phillips (26th) who were part of the St. Angela’s team who won the silver team medal. Faye O’Riordan (St. Angela’s) has been finding good form in recent weeks and a 13th place in a competitive Senior girl’s race qualifies Faye for Nationals. Aidan Maher (St. Colman’s) finished in 5th place in the boy’s Senior race over 5.4k and will also travel to Galway. Really good performances from the following Senior athletes also: Laura Moore (Loreto, Fermoy, 22nd), Peter Hawkins (Bruce College, 18th) and Cian Ryan (Glanmire CC, 41st).

Other News:

Congratulations to Club PRO Tadhg Crowley who finished 9th overall and was 1st M40 running 28:44 in the Eagle AC Tommy Ryan memorial 5-mile race in Carrigaline. Going well also was Nicky Pike who finished in 57th place in 34:24. Colm Crowley finished the Milford 10k in a snappy 41.24s. Great to see Eoin Quirke back in action, the Gap of Dunloe half-marathon a nice challenge for his first race in a while but a 7th place finish from 365 runners in a time 1:29:07 an impressive return.

Look Forward: The National Senior Indoor Championships take place next weekend in Abbotstown, best of luck to Ciaran Nugent (400m), Aidan Maher (3000m), Aoife Martin and Anna Mullins (3000m Racewalk).