By David Butler, St Brendan's AC juvenile head coach.
There and back again….Waterford Regional Sports Centre was the venue for this weekend’s competition, it’s about as far away as you can get in Munster and still be in the province but it proved to be a successful weekend for our club with precious reward which came in many forms. Our athletes tested themselves against the best in Munster and came away with 9 medals, National qualification and personal bests as they went through the experience of it all.
First in action on Saturday was Eoin Malik, who was entered to compete in 3 U17 boys events over the two days. Triple Jump in terrible conditions meant that playing it safe was going to be the order of the day. Eoin opened and closed his event with a best jump of 12.31m to win the gold medal.
At the same time Aoibhinn O’Driscoll opened her weekend with the first of her trio, U14 girl’s high jump and after opening at 1.25m the bar rose to 1.40m which Aoibhinn cleared. The wind and rain was not helping Aoibhinn and her competitors as they fosbury flopped onto a wet mat but her best jump of 1.40m won the silver medal.
Action on the track then got going for the club with our duo of racewalkers for this Munster competition of Hannah Sheehy going in the U13 girls 2K race and Oisin Fletcher in the U14 boys 2K race. This was Hannah’s 2nd ever racewalking race (the last one at Munster Indoors this year season) but her first race at the 2K distance and it was Oisin’s 2nd ever racewalk having taken up the event this season too. Both athletes were put through a vigorous warmup by David Kissane which was certainly needed with the conditions and the standard of the event. Both the boys and girls in this age group went off together and working very hard across all 5 laps both athletes recorded clean sheets with Hannah crossing the line in 13:22.42 and Oisin in 13:56.85 (new pb). Both athletes won the silver medal in their age groups. A first Munster medal for Oisin, a day to remember!
Over to the hurdles then,
Aoibhinn was back in action then for her 2nd event of the day, this time in the 75mH. Running into a strong headwind she placed 2nd in the semi-final to qualify through to the final. With a quick turnaround the girls lined up for the final where Aoibhinn improved on her semi time of 13.56 to 12:95 to win her 2nd medal of the day, this time the bronze for 3rd place.
Alex Blackett was next up to face the short hurdles as he lined up in the U14 boys 75mH event. The wind was doing none of our hurdlers any favours but Alex crossed the line in 4th place in his semi-final and qualified for the final. The final ran off a short time, Alex improved on his time from the semi as he finished in 8th place overall with a time of 17.06m.
Maddison O’Connor stepped up to the blocks next in the U15 girls 80mH, with unfortunate scheduling Maddison’s favoured events of long jump, triple jump and short hurdles where going to be run in quick succession so she had a choice to make and decided to stick with one jump event and the hurdles. Maddison qualified from the semi-finals it was short notice before she had to quickstep it to the start line. With a better start Maddison improved on her time from the semi she crossed the line in 7th place in 15.8 seconds.
Maddison then switched over to the triple jump; thankfully conditions had slightly improved but still very changeable with wind, drizzle and sun alternating every 15mins. Maddison hop, skipped and jumped to 8.29m this best jump (just 2cm off her personal best) coming in the 3rd round. That jump secured her 4th place which secured her a spot at Nationals in the event.
Eoin Malik was competing in his 2nd event of the weekend, the U17 boy’s javelin. The head wind which can sometimes work in your favour with the javelin showed no consistency for the throwers as the javelins were sometimes stalling instead of rising through the air. Eoin’s best throw of 36.25m coming in the third round won him his 2nd medal of the day, a silver medal for 2nd place.
Alex Blackett was back in action where his 2nd event of the day was the U14 boys 200m heats. This was Alex’s debut in the 200s, he had a good start and attacked the bend before finishing strong down the home straight to place 5th in his heat with a time of 33.16.
The final athlete competing on Saturday was Zach Walshe who lined up in the U18 boys 3000m race. In this event, the U17s, U18s and U19s boys all raced together. A fast start over the first two laps before the field opened up and then it was solo running for the majority of the athletes including Zach. Crossing the line in 10:25.27 it wasn’t the time Zach had hoped for but still secured the bronze medal in his age group for him.
Back for the Sunday events, the rain clouds abated and it was sun cream weather this time out! Aoibhinn O’Driscoll competed in the U14 girl’s long jump and Eoin Malik in the U17 boy’s long jump. Eoin was first to the pits, with a narrow break on his first round jump on what was a certain pb his best jump of the day to that point came in the 3rd round where he leapt to 5.91m. Eoin had his eyes on the 6.10m mark and to also pb, the 4th and 5th jumps were back a little from his earlier best but there was more to come. In the final round with the pressure on he jumped to a new lifetime best of 6.18m (previously 6m) and to a silver medal for Eoin. This medal to go with his gold and silver from day 1 and close off an excellent Munster season for Eoin and he reverts back to National competition next weekend.
Aoibhinn then who had watched on in quiet interest to Eoin’s competition then took to the runway in the U14 girl’s event. A large field of 29 long jumpers competed in what was the largest field of the weekend in the long jump events. Her first round jump of 4.43m put her in 2nd place and she then stepped that up to 4.64m in the 3rd round. All to play for going into the delayed final, Aoibhinn’s kept focusing on improving her jump and in the final round jumped to 4.73m to put more distance between her and 3rd place and secure the silver medal. Aoibhinn’s 3rd medal of the weekend, with 2 silver medals and a bronze medal going home to Kilmoyley.
That drew to a close the Munster U14-U19 competitions, well done to our all athletes on their successes and thanks to their families and friends for bringing them to the competition. Thanks to the club coaches for preparing our athletes for the event and the support given to the athletes over the weekend.
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