The final indoor event of the year took place at the weekend, as the best teenage athletes from each of the four provinces gathered in Athlone for the Irish Indoor Age Group Championships.
From a North Down perspective, Jamie Moffatt was the undoubted star of the show. He cruised to victory in his heat of the U18 60m with a new PB of 7.00s and then went even quicker in the final, leading from gun to tape to take an emphatic gold medal against some quality opposition. His winning time of of 6.86s was not only a new championship record but was also a mere 0.02s outside the Irish U18 National Record and will, no doubt, have put him in contention for this summer’s outdoor championships, provided he can translate these times to the 100m.
Conor Adair had a busy weekend, competing in the U18 400m on Saturday and the 200m on Sunday. He ran a gutsy race in his 400m heat and improved his recent PB by a further second to 53.68s but narrowly missed qualifying for the final. He had better luck in Sunday’s 200m where he once again set a PB of 23.89s when finishing 2nd in his heat and qualifying for the final,l. Unfortunately, he had the unenviable task of being drawn in the extremely tight lane 1 for the final so couldn’t quite match his heat time, but did well to finish 5th in 24.03s
Unfortunately, Ryan Hamilton was unwell for much of the week leading up to these championships, which made his time of 7.76s in the U16 60m heats all the more impressive, as it was just 0.01s outside his PB set at the recent NI Indoor Championships, but wasn’t enough to make it through to the final.
As usual, the middle distance races were run as a series of time trials. Ben Acheson recorded his third fastest ever 1500m to finish 4th in heat 1 of the U18 event and his time of 4:17.91 placed him 9th overall.
