Mageean has sights on 1,500m record

LAST year, Ciara Mageean (Assumption, Ballinahinch) took her career to a new level when she broke Sonia O’Sullivan’s long standing national junior 800m record at the Irish schools track and field championships.

The then 17-year-old Portaferry girl won the 800m in a spectacular time of 2:05.38, inside the national junior record which Sonia O’Sullivan set at 2:05.78 at Meadowbank back in 1987.

On Saturday she will have her sights set on the 1,500m record when she returns to the Tullamore Harriers Track for the Woodies DIY Irish Schools Championships and, with the world junior championships in Canada later in the year her big focus, another record would boost her medal hopes.

Another young athlete with record-breaking capabilities is Siofra Cleirigh Buttner (Colaiste Iosagain) in the junior girls’ 1500m. She took 12 seconds off the Leinster Schools’ record and is well capable of setting a new mark on Saturday.

And there could also be a girls’ record in the field events if Alice Akers (Scariff Community College) who added five metres to the hammerjunior record which was held by her older sister, Rachel, at the Munster schools championships, can reproduce that form. The race of the day could be the intermediate boys’ 1500m with Adam Ingram (Hazelwood College) and Shane Fitzsimons (St Joseph’s Rochfortbridge) both settingprovincial records last week whileRuairi Finnegan (St Eunan’s Letterkenny) was also inside the old record in Ulster.

Patrick Maher (Davis College Mallow) posted his qualifying standard for the world junior championships on his very first outdoor race of the season when he won the 400m hurdles at the Leevale Open Sports in Cork. On Saturday he will be defending thesenior boys’ 400m hurdles title and looking for a double in the 400m flat when Tim Crowe (Limerick TC) and Joseph Dowling (Terenure College) will be his big challengers.

Mark English (St Eunan’s,Letterkenny) is just back from Moscow where he qualified for the World Youth Olympics in Singapore and will be favourite for the senior boys’ 800m.

Rrace walker, Kate Veale (St Augustine’s, Dungarvan), has also qualified for Singapore, claimed the national junior record last year and will bebidding to better the Intermediate girls’ record she set last year.

Seye Oglunlewe (King’s Hospital) is the standout performer in the senior boys’ sprints while Patrick O’Connor (Colaiste Reachrann) and Marcus Lawler (CBS Carlow) promise exciting competition in the intermediate boys’ sprints.

In the senior girls’ sprints Joan Healy (Colaiste na Toirbhirte Bandon), the Munster champion, and Stephanie Creaner (Institute of Education) go head to head while, in theintermediate girls’ sprints, Ciara Giles Doran (Mercy Waterford) will be favourite for the 200m after breaking the Munster record last time out. Meanwhile former world indoor champion and European silvermedallist, Derval O’Rourke, haswelcomed the introduction of anAthlete of the Meet Award at this year’s Woodie’s DIY AAI Senior Track and Field Championships. The winner at the Morton Stadium in Santry next month will receive a cheque for €1,000. Every athlete who breaks an Irish record over the weekend will receive a cheque for €500.

“The new Athlete of the Meet award is a great way to get athletesperforming to their best at the National Championships,” said O’Rourke. “It will mean all of our top athletes will be looking to hit peak form and put on a great show at Santry in front of what will hopefully be a big Irish crowd.”

The Woodie’s DIY AAI Senior Track and Field Championships are at Morton Stadium on July 10-11.