Proper and Andrews to light up Mardyke

KELLY PROPER (Ferrybank) and Marian Andrews (Togher), two of the Irish athletes who excelled at the European indoor championships in Turin last month, will be in action at The Mardyke on Sunday when Leevale Athletic Club promote their annual sports meeting.

The mammoth programme will begin with the juvenile events at 11am while the full programme of senior events for both men and women will commence at 2.30.

Marian Andrews produced a string of personal best performances on the indoor circuit where she won the national indoor 400m title and went on to represent Ireland in both the individual 400m and the 4 x 400m relay at the European indoor championships will be a star attraction at The Mardyke.

It appears as if there will be heats in both the men’s and women’s 400m, according to leading coach, John Sheehan, who is in the process of putting together a plan that he feels confident will produce men’s and women’s teams for the 2012 Olympics.

“There is a huge entry at the moment and it certainly looks as if we will have heats,” he said. “A number of athletes may be looking for times for events and to facilitate those we will be providing electronic timing.”

Kelly Proper is a regular performer at The Mardyke where she set junior and U-23 records before going on to break Terri Horgan’s senior mark last August to claim all the records.

Since then she has gone from strength to strength in the sprints as well and will join her clubmate, Niamh Whelan, in the 100 and 200m this weekend as well as competing in the long jump. Both competed in the European indoor championships.

The women’s 800m should be an exciting race with Laura Crowe from An Riocht AC chasing a qualifying standard for this year’s European U-23 championships. She will be joined by Claire McSweeney and Andrea Bickerdyke from the promoting club.