On a day which saw Ray Flynn’s 41-year-old National 1500m record finally surpassed, a new crop of talented young Longford athletes were making their mark at Day 1 of the Connacht Juvenile Indoors in Athlone.
The 4 x 200m relays always provide great racing with a series of exciting encounters over the day. They included an outstanding run by our speedy Under-12 boys quartet of El’Nathan Okoh, Andrew Fitzpatrick, Adam Mulleady and Donncha Farrell who sprinted to gold in a time of 1:59.77 – a Championship Best Performance! Brilliant stuff from the boys.
The girls were in form too and our second relays highlight came with the U13 team of Leah Waters, Sarah Connolly, Sophia Smith and Cadhla Golden who combined to win silver with a superb run. Great going girls.
John Fitzpatrick was the day’s individual star performer for the Club with a hat-trick of gold medals to his name winning the U13 boys shot put, high jump and long jump. Congratulations to John on another very successful competition in the blue singlet which included a best effort of beyond 10 metres in the shot put. John’s trio of gold’s greatly helped Longford to top the Medals Table for the day!!!
El’Nathan Okoh bagged his second gold of the day when finishing in a tie for first in the U12 60m in a blistering 8.79 seconds. He was joined on the podium by Adam Mulleady who ran a fantastic PB of 8.95 for bronze.
Leah Waters jumped to gold in the U13 girls high jump with an impressive 1.35m. Conor Brennan did brilliant for bronze in the U13 1000m walk in a very close finish.
There were some near misses too as despite a very strong finish by Sarah Connolly to win her U13 600m heat, she narrowly missed out on bronze by less than 0.5 seconds on the overall times. A really good jump by Zoe Mulligan in the U12 girls long jump was only 0.02m off third.
It was a great to see so many young athletes represent Longford AC with some making their first appearance in club competition – the benefits of our indoor centre are certainly starting to show.
Caoimhe Eager, Zoe Mulligan, Julie Taitt, Hollie Smith, Holly Brady, Georgia Brady, Éabha Brady, Ellie Moran, Molly Murphy, Keeva Manning, Jessica Neary, Donncha Farrell, Rian Foley, Adam Mulleady, El’Nathan Okoh, Dillon Walsh, Seán Eager, Andrew Fitzpatrick, Jamie McCaffrey, Charlie Nolan, Leah Waters, Sarah Connolly, Cadhla Golden, Sarah Taitt, Sophia Smith, Setanta Smith, Eoin Grehan, Conor Brennan, John Fitzpatrick, Noah Washington, Evan Maher.
Congratulations to all medalists who can now look forward to the All-Irelands in the next few weeks.
Our thanks to the event officials, which included Longford AC coaches, and well done to all participants for a great day’s athletics. Such a fun day was excellently captured by very supportive parents and thanks to all for the great photos. Roll on Day 2!
