Three golds were awarded to Kilkenny City Harrier (KCH ) girls Aoife Hickey and Mary Kate Lanigan at the Celtic games in Grangemouth, Scotland on Saturday.
Mary Kate won the under 18 high jump clearing the bar at 1.65m at her first attempt. Having the competition won with 1.65 she proceeded to try for 1.70m and came very close to clearing that height.
Aoife had double gold, in hammer and shot put. In the hammer she had two throws in excess of 50 meters, winning with 50.66. She also put in a top class performance in the shot. One huge throw, measured at 13.20m would have been a PB but unfortunately it was fouled. Her next best throw of 12.48 won her the gold. Winning gold in this competition was a great way to finish up what has been a very good track season for both girls.
Fiona Dennehy, St Senan’s, was 7th in the 1K walk in 4m 33.19secs. Ireland with 61 points was first in the under 18 girls section of the Celtic games. Wales was second with 56 points and Scotland was third with 50 points.
Next weekend sees the winding down of the juvenile track and field season with two events scheduled for Santry Stadium. The All-Ireland combined events will be held on Saturday.
KCH have three girls; Catriona Twomey, Sinead McDonough and Cliodhna Manning competing at under 14 level.
On Sunday Liam McWey and Pijus Timas go in the B All-Irelands. For the remainder of August KCH training will be suspended except for those travelling to Mosney for the Community Games.
KCH juvenile training resumes in the Castle Park on Saturday, September 6 at 11.00am.
Eoin Everard continued his good performances on the continent. On Saturday he was first Irish finisher in an 800m in Amsterdam in a time of 1.51.37. Earlier in the week he had a PB of 1.48.98 when he won the 800m at a meet in Belgium.
Olympic hopes
The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games takes place on August 8 with the first of the athletic events happening on August 15. Joanne Cuddihy and Eileen O’Keeffe were among the Irish party which flew to Beijing last week.
From there they travel to Japan to acclimatise before returning to Beijing for competition. Three of Ireland’s athletes will be involved on August 15. Alistair Cragg goes in round one of the 1,500m and Roisin McGettigan and Fionnula Britton compete in round one of the steeplechase. Hoping all injuries will have cleared up by then we wait in anticipation of exciting action.
The latter end of August will see some local action for our adult road runners with two events scheduled. The Rusty Scanlon 10K starts from Woodies DIY carpark on Friday, August 22, at 7.00pm.
The County Kilkenny road championships (Men 10 mile, Women 5 mile ) is set for Sunday, August 31, starting at Bodalmore on the Waterford Road at 11.00am.
