By David Butler, St Brendan's AC Juvenile Head Coach
A successful weekend for our club athletes, first up on Saturday was Cody McKenna running the U12 boys 60m sprint heats. With 4 heats and just the 1st in each to qualify to the final with 4th fastest times to also qualify, Cody placed 4th in his heat but just missed out on the final by one place with his time as he had the 5th fastest time. Cody would be back in action in the afternoon.
Next up then was Katie Butler competing the U13 girl’s shot put where she would line up against 10 other competitors. Katie opened her competition with a throw of 7.36m which was the best throw of all in the first round. In the 2nd row with all the play for she kept for form and focus and improved her mark to 7.69m. A final round throw of 7.60m followed. All throws completed and the results in and it was a silver medal for Katie, her 2nd National medal having also won silver in 2022 in the turbo javelin pairs.
After a long wait Conor Slattery was up for the U12 boy’s high jump, Conor had first time clearances from 1m all the way to 1.20m. On his 2nd attempt at 1.25m he equalled his PB before the bar was raised to 1.30m. Conor had 3 attempts at this height and he was very unlucky to have the slightest clip of the bar on his 3rd go which saw his competition end. 2 athletes jumped the 1.30m bar but no higher and with the results in Conor placed 4th on countback. Not too long of a wait and Conor was back for his 2nd event, the U12 boy’s shot put. Conor opened his account with 6.33m with a safe throw. His 2nd round throw looked to be a big one but unfortunately didn’t meet the favour of the judge’s eye. Under pressure then going into the final round, Conor needed to improve to get into a medal position and he landed the shot out to 6.89m, breaking his old PB of 6.75m and to the silver medal, a first National medal for him.
Cody was back in action then, the u12 boy’s long jump. A large field of 17 athletes here and Cody was 2nd last in the jumping order before he could take to the runway. His PB of 4.06m would need to be surpassed to get him a chance at the podium. With that first jump Cody’s leaped to a new lifetime best of 4.14m and into the 1st place in the event, just getting ahead of the next best jumper on 4.13cm. Two rounds of jumps would follow but no one closed that gap on Cody and he won the gold, his first National medal.
On Sunday and day 2 of the National Juvenile Championships. Aoibhinn O’Driscoll was up first in the u14 girl’s long jump in a large field of 18 athletes. Aoibhinn opened her account with 4.66m before improving to 4.78m in the 2nd round and it was 4.62m in the 3rd round. This had Aoibhinn as 6th overall as she made the top 8 final then and all to play for. Aoibhinn had a target, 3 jumps to try win that medal. Her 4th and 5th jumps of 4.43m and 4.61m didn’t improve her position but taking to the runway for the final time she had a brilliant final jump of 4.92m (just 3cm off her pb of 4.95) to move into the bronze medal position. 5 more athletes would jump with two of them the potential to move Aoibhinn out of the hot seat and unfortunately that was to be the case as she finished 4th overall.
Next up then was Oisin Fletcher, making his first trip to Tullamore for his debut at Nationals. Oisin was competing in the u14 boys 2K walk. Oisin worked hard to prepare for the competition fitting training in during his holidays abroad with plenty of warm weather and hill training. Oisin warmed up for the event today with walks coach David Kissane present to support. Lining up in a field of 8 boys it was 5 laps of the track for all. A fast start before the boys settled into their pace, Oisin had a consistent race and avoiding the scrutiny of the referees he crossed in 7th place just two seconds off his PB of 13:56 for a fine debut at National level.
The final athlete to compete at these championships for the club then was Maddison O’Connor who would be taking part in the u15 girl’s triple jump. Maddison’s 2nd time to Tullamore having competed last year in National B’s she was excited to get going at her event. A field of 14 athletes for this new event in this age group Maddison opened her competition with 8.78m (a new pb for her moving on from 8.31m). On her 2nd round jump her right foot rolled slightly on landing on the step which didn’t help her jump and she landed at 8.28m. In the 3rd round she pushed to try improving on that first round but 8.48m the mark. Just missing out on the top 8, Maddison placed 9th overall.
That closed off the juvenile season for our athletes, thank you again to the athlete’s families and friends for making the trips to bring them to competitions and to the athletes for representing their club so well. Thanks also to our coaches and club volunteers who help prepare the athletes for their events and for supporting the athletes on the days across the country. It has been a very successful season for our club, 10 Nationals medals just one of the indicators of the success of our group and the many more positive experiences for all earned through the participation at training and competition. We look forward to next season when it all kicks off again.
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