Finn Valley Athletics Club Celebrates World Record and Personal Bests in Weekend Highlights

It was, in many ways, a special weekend for long standing club member Noreen Bonner as she combined with two Mayo athletes and an athlete from Mullingar to form an Irish O65 4 x 800m relay team. The plan was to challenge the existing world masters record at that age category, held by the USA at 14.49.29. Noreen, running the second leg, coped extremely well with what for her is a short distance event in comparison to what she normally undertakes, contributing to a new World Record in this age category for the Irish team. Held at Santry the team clocked 13.59.92 which indeed shattered the old record. Congratulations to Noreen and her team.

Elsewhere at the Belfast Milers meeting, Arlene Crossan continued to show improvement, once again bettering her personal best and club record over 400m, returning a time of 54.22. Also notable at this meet was Oisin Toye who returned a personal best performance in the 1500m at 3.47.72. Also in competition was brother and sister Ciaran and Eimear McCarroll; Eimear in 1500m (4.32.60) and Ciaran in 400m (53.44).

Across in the USA, Cara Laverty had yet another successful weekend competing for her University, Providence College. She contributed immensely to the team, winning the Big East 4 x 800m Championship, getting in ahead of Georgetown.

The club hosted their annual Little Athletics meeting on Wednesday evening. Beautiful weather conditions and an enthusiastic turnout of some 260 youngsters and an opportunity for many to not only try athletics but prepare for the Primary Schools Finals and the forthcoming Ulster Childrens Games.

The Donegal junior/Senior and Masters track and field championships were held in Lifford on Sunday and many Finn Valley athletes returned medal performances; Gerard Gallagher, Catriona Devine, Darren Toland, Bosco Reid, Ace Rodriguez, Kay Byrne, Ryan Toner, Garvan Boyce and Ben Carr, who just days earlier had returned from his University base in America to win on, this occasion, the 800m. An early victory on the day was posted by Oisin Thompson in the long jump, heralding him as the new County Champion.

Additionally, the club played host once again to the Darkness into Light walk and run, which got underway at 4.15am on Saturday morning with a very encouraging turnout on again what were ideal conditions. Finn Valley AC are very pleased to be associated with this charity event.

Maggie O’Hara travelled to Emyvale in Co Monaghan on Sunday where she won the ladies section of the local Errigal sponsored 10k while a number of athletes also took in the Annual Ballyshannon 5k Friday evening where Theresa Doherty was to the fore.

Preparations are already underway for the Secondary Schools Track and Field Championship later this week and the Ulster Childrens Games plus U12/13 once again being staged at Finn Valley on June 2^nd.

Across in Liverpool, Jon-Jo Doherty got a pb in the Merseyside 1500m championship returning a time of 4.05.37 while Liam McCay won the 1500m U20 Merseyside Championship with a time of 4.05.35.