Silver Medal for Matthew at National Indoor Championships

National Juvenile Indoor Championships

Congratulations to Matthew Kelly who won a Silver medal in the U14 Shot Putt at the National Juvenile Indoor Championships in Nenagh at the weekend. This was Matthew's first Indoor medal as he is better known for his talent outdoors in the Javelin and Ball Throw in which he is the current All-Ireland Champion. Matthew had a great series of throws with his best being 10.25m and he now looks forward to some hard training for the outdoor Championships in July in which he intends to compete in the Discus, Hammer and Javelin. Cormac Gallen competed in his first National Championships this weekend and was delighted when he made the final 8 in the Shot Putt U14 with a new p.b. of 8.10m.

Our athletes had many excellent performances over the 2-day Championships with many personal bests. Paul Doherty competed in the 60m sprint on Saturday where he finished 5th in the final and was confident of a high placing in his favourite event the 60m Hurdles on Sunday. Indeed Paul was very unlucky in the final of the 60m Hurdles where he dipped a few metres too early, stumbled and lost the bronze medal by five hundredths of a second. However, he will have gained from the experience and will be determined to prove himself over the 100m Hurdles come July.

Jodie Stewart had an excellent Long Jump competition bettering her personal best on two occasions with her best jump of 4.67m giving her 5th position in the final just 1cm of 4th and 10 cm off a medal. Jodie also competed well in the High Jump.

Stewart McClean ran well in the heats of the 400m U19 on Saturday to qualify for the final on Sunday. In the final Stewart took almost 2 seconds of his indoor p.b. to finish in 4th place in an excellent time of 52.87 unfortunately being pipped a metre from the finish line for the bronze medal. Although he was disappointed not to have won a medal he was delighted with his p.b. and with more training and race experience will get close to 50 seconds this year.

Breda McGinty put in an excellent run on Saturday to qualify for the final of the U16 1500m on Sunday in a time of 5.01minutes the closest she had come to her p.b. of 4.58.21 for over 2 years. In the final on Sunday she ran her heart out and was very disappointed to finish in 4th place but had great consolation when the times went up and she discovered she had run a new p.b. of 4.54.69, a very good time for this talented 15 year old.

Mark Bonnar also came very close to a medal in the 600m U12 after a great run on Saturday to qualify for Sunday's final in a time of 1.53.74 Mark went out hard and determined in the final and just missed out on a medal but ran an excellent 1.48.73 a new p.b.

Nikki Alcorn competed in the U18 1500m, won by her good friend Joanne English, and was delighted with her performance taking 10 seconds of her p.b. and shows that she is in good form to defend her National Title in the 1500m Walk on the 2nd April.

Ryan McDaid qualified for the final of the U16 1500m on Saturday in a time of 4.42.3 and put in a very determined run on Sunday to better his time to 4.40.94 to finish 8th in the final.

Brian Patton competed very well in the U18 1500m just narrowly missing his p.b. which he set in the Scottish Indoors in February.

Sportshall, Birmingham

Christine Feely travelled to Birmingham last weekend as one of the Team Managers for the British Sportshall Finals. We had three athletes on the Donegal Teams; Laura Feely had a very good competition finishing 4th in the U13 Shot Putt, Aaron McMenamin also competing very well in the U13 High Jump finishing 5th with a jump of 1.40m and Aileen Brennan who competed well in the U13 High Jump 1.35m. The U13 girls team finished in 6th place overall and the U13 Boys Team finished 5th.

Newsletters by Bernie Alcorn, Club P.R.O.