Olympic athlete Paul Hession was back in action last weekend at the Woodie’s DIY Senior Irish Championships in the Odyssey Arena, Belfast, posting a winning time in the 60m sprint.
The Athenry athlete successfully defended his title, posting a time of 6.88 seconds in the heats, which he followed with 6.75 seconds in the semi-final. This improved on his seasonal best of 6.78 seconds which he ran at IAAF indoor meet in Karlsruhe Germany last weekend. Hession went on to run 6.76 seconds in the final - although this was .04 slower than last year. Nineteen-years-old Dean Adams of Ballymena posted a personal best of 6.89 seconds to finish second.
Hession will not compete in the World Indoor Championships in Doha as his focus for 2010 is the European Track and Field Championships in Barcelona in August. He is also hoping to break his own Irish record for the 100m of 20.30 seconds during the year which he set in 2007.
There were more medal winning performances from Galway athletes. Hession’s Athenry teammate Claire McNamara won bronze in the high jump, clearing 1.65m, while Galway City Harriers’ Sean Breathnach took silver in the men's shot putt for the second year in a row with a throw of 15.28m. . He finished behind guest Jamie Stevenson and Kieren Kelly, who have both been provisionally suspended from all competition after being charged by UK Anti-Doping with having committed an anti-doping rule violation.
In other events GCH middle distance runner Joseph O'Donnell ran an indoor PB in the heats of the men's 800m with a time of 1m 59.60 secs, with teammates Eddie Costello 2m.04 and Brendan Glynn GCH 2m.13 secs.
In road running Tony Scanlon of Galway City Harriers won the inaugural School 5k Run in Newcastle, Athenry in a time of 16:52 ahead of Peter O'Sullivan of Craughwell AC. In Westport the 5k race, which concludes the 2009 Mayo Road race series was finally held with Gerry Ryan of GCH winning the event in 15.34, his fifth victory in the series and enough to claim the series title. It was a treble in the series for Galway with Martin Corcoran of Craughwell AC winning the over 40 for both this race and the Mayo series, and Bernie Kelly of GCH claimed the same honour in the female over 45 category.
