North Down finished 5th at Antrim on Saturday at the Northern Ireland Young Athletes Final, the first where boys and girls teams were amalgamated. City of Derry won the league for the first time from Regent House and Lagan Valley and we wish them well in Birmingham at the National Final.The day was basically fine and the event was very enjoyable thanks to the enthusiasm of all the athletes and to the work put in by all the officials both from the NIAF and from clubs. North Down had some tremendous results but could not turn out the huge numbers needed to cover the big number of events. Even the very successful U17 youths team could not cover every thing and U17 girls and U15 boys could only muster token representation but they all performed well.
[Not a valid template]Those graduating from the league at the top of the U17 scale were massive. The Patterson twins, Niall Robinson and Matt Heaney won the closing 4 x 400m relay in style and had fast times winning “A” and “B” 400m. Niall had another sub 2 minute clocking at 800m running totally on his own from the front and was overall boy athlete of the match. Mark won the 1500m in a fast time taking a useful scalp while Michael brought his steeplechase pb down yet again into very respectable territory. The current U15″s supported them well and look poised to take over the mantle next year.