A small group of NDAC athletes made the long trip to Athlone to take part in the GloHealth Juvenile Indoor Age Group championships over the weekend.
Despite the step up in distance from her usual 300m, Holly Brannigan ran her heat of the U17 girls 400m aggressively, leading the race throughout, only to be overtaken on the home straight but still finishing second and qualifying for the final with a new PB of 60.29s. Unfortunately her exertion in the heat took it’s toll and she couldn’t quite match this performance in the final, finishing 6th in a time 61.74s.
Isaac Hart, who is in his first year of competition for the club, was competing in his first national finals but had difficulty coping with the steeply banked bends and finished 5th in his heat of the U16 boys 200m in a time of 24.57s.
Molly Longstaff was also competing in her first national indoor final and unfortunately let her nerves get the better of her as she struggled with her run up. Molly finished 12th in the U17 girls long jump with a below par jump of 4.32m.
Ollie Wakefield had his most consistent series of jumps ever with all but one over 6m. Ollie was tantalisingly close to his outdoor PB with a leap of 6.26m in the fifth round which earned him a well deserved bronze medal in the U18 boys long jump. Sadly he struggled with his start in the 60m hurdles and as a result had to pull up after the first hurdle and was unable to finish the race.
Aaron Sexton took a memorable double in the U17 boys 60m & 200m. On Saturday, when running his first ever 60m, he set a new championship best performance in the heats with a time of 7.06s and went on to take gold by the narrowest of margins in the final, winning in a time of 7.07s. On Sunday he breezed through the heats in his more favoured 200m with an impressive time of 22.77s, however, in the final he not only decimated the opposition but beat the championship best performance by over 0.3s and dipped under 22sec for the first time, winning gold in a staggering 21.97s. These times place Aaron in 10th for the 60m & 2nd for the 200m in the UK U17 rankings with the 200m time being a mere 0.07s outside the Irish qualifying standard for the European Youth Championships in Tiblisi, later in the summer.
Full results can be found here:
http://www.athleticsirelandenterprises.com/results_12032016/schedule.html – Saturday
http://www.athleticsirelandenterprises.com/results_13032016/schedule.html – Sunday
Sunday’s live streamed coverage can be found here: