O’Donoghue romps home in impressive fashion
His 6.94 secs was short of the national under-23 record which he set at 6.89 secs when winning the title for the first time last year but the performance was every bit as impressive.
Unlike the previous week, he was fast out of the blocks, led the Co Wicklow junior, Darragh Graham, after the first few strides and coasted to a most impressive victory.
Darragh Graham, who has his sights on the European junior championships, was second in 7.18 secs, clear of another Leevale athlete, Sean Manning, who powered his way to third place in 7.21.
“Right now I am not quite as sharp as I was this time last year as I am still on strength training. I did not ease back at all for this meet and that’s why I am very happy with the performance,” O’Donoghue said.
“My next race will be either the Scottish Championships or the International Games in Cardiff at the beginning of February and, after that, I will be racing every weekend.”
Eoin Leen (Tralee Harriers) has the AAA under-20 championships in Birmingham in two weeks time on his mind but he said while he is entered, it will be a last minute decision.
He set a new championship best performance when winning the Munster junior shot putt title with a best of 16.91m yesterday and then he finished 10 centimetres behind Paul Crowe, guesting, who won the senior event with a best of 15.41.
Garret Barry (North Cork) continues to roll back the years.
Yesterday he retained his 3,000m title in 8:47.9, well clear of the remainder of the field and then rounded off the afternoon by winning the 1,500m title in 4:09.47.
He was followed over the line by 800m runner, Brendan O’Shea, who moved up in distance to finish second in 8:56.0 while guesting with Paul Grant (Waterford) third in 9:16.2.
He was equally impressive in the 1,500m where he was followed home by clubmate Rob Neill with Martin Bradshaw (Bilboa) third.
Another who keeps rolling back the years is Patsy O’Connor (Tralee Harriers) who won his 27th Munster title yesterday when retaining the 56 lbs for distance.
A week earlier he won five medals at the Munster Masters championships, winning the shot, long jump and high jump and finishing second the Brendan Moran in the 200m after being caught by two on the line in the 60m.
Orna Donoghue (Carrick-on-Suir) won all three 60m hurdles, high jump and long jump titles to collect three gold medals.
Ailish McSweeney (Leevale) could emerge as one of the most improved athletes of the season. Following on her fine performance the previous week at the AAA Games she won the 60m impressively in 7.91 secs.
Jessica Zebo (Leevale) was one of a number of junior athletes to impress. She won the 60m hurdles title early in the day and then took the 200m title in 26.51 seconds from Karen Considine (Fanahan McSweeney AC) who was second in 26.72. She finished off the day by anchoring Leevale to victory in the senior women’s 4 x 200m relay.
Tony Barnett (Tralee Harriers) built on the fine performances of the previous weekend at the AAI Games to record a sprint double, winning the junior men’s 60m in 7.13 secs and the 200m in 23.10
Orla Drumm (Dooneen) was on record pace for much of the junior women’s 1,500m despite the fact that she ran in the Reebok International cross-country meet in Belfast on Saturday.
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