Veale claims bronze as she beats heat with perfect timing

KATE VEALE (West Waterford) won bronze in the junior 10k at theEuropean Racewalking Cup in Olhao, Portugal, on Saturday.

Robert Heffernan (Togher) was 10th in the 20k, Olive Loughnane was disqualified with the leader in her sights 400 metres from the finish and 15-year-old Evan Lynch (Clonmel) secured his qualifying standard for the European Youth Olympics.

Ray Flynn, chairman of high performance unit said: “A medal at thislevel is sensational at any time but Kate Veale’s performance in the heat this morning was spectacular. Kate wasfantastic. This girl is the real deal. The conditions were far from favourable but her pace judgement was terrific.”

The race was won by Yelena Lashmanova in 43:10 from her Russian team-mate Svetlana Vasilyeva (44:02), with Veale third in 46:32. A delighted Veale said: “My inspiration is my coach and clubmate, Jamie Costin. He’s been to the Olympics four times and made sure I peaked just right. The key was not to go off too fast, and it worked.”

In the senior men, StanislavEmeloyanov added the European Cup title to his CV with his second sub-80 minute 20k of the year. Heffernan was chasing the leader at halfway (42:21) but went out the back at the end of a 4:06 lap and ended up 10th (85.34).

Despite her disqualification, Loughnane was happy with herperformance against eventual winner Vera Sokolova. “I was catching the world record holder and I had theother girl who is just a second off the world record behind me when ithappened. I was going really well. I am really strong. But I always get one DQ in the year and it’s good to have it out of the way.”

Laura Reynolds (Mohill AC) finished 21st in 96:30, while in the men’s 20k Brendan Boyle was 29th in 92:12 with Michael Doyle 33rd in 94:24.

Ireland’s other two competitors in the junior women’s 10k, Maeve Curley and Emma Prendiville, also did well. Curley was 20th in 52:37 and Prendiville 24th in 54:15. Evan Lynch (Clonmel) finished 27th in the junior men’s 10k in 47:08 — inside thequalifying standard for the European Youth Olympics.

Meanwhile, the strong wind and heavy rain meant no track records were set at the Aviva/Munster Schools T&F Championships on Saturday but four regional bests were set in the field events.

Kayleigh Cronin from St Brigid’s in Killarney was responsible for two of those, improving the junior girls’ pole vault mark from 2.30m to 2.70m and added 1.15m to the previous best for the discus with a throw of 37.87m.

Alice Akers (Scariff CC) improved her year-old best in the junior hammer by over three metres to 50.01m and in the same discipline Cara Kennedy (CTI Waterford) established a new mark of 53.87m in the senior section.

In one of the best track races of the day, Dean Cronin (Coláiste an Phiarsaigh) let Shane Quinn (De La Salle) set a swift early pace before making his move over the last 150m to win the 800m in 1:55.88.

Quinn returned to take the 1500m in 4:02.88 with Cullen Lynch ofDouglas CS pressing him all the way (4:07.14). Another Waterford athlete, James Green of Comeragh CC,impressed with a sub-50 second 400m victory while David Killeen had his expected sprint double, clocking 11.57 for the 100m with the wind reading at -4.4.

Two front-running performances saw Jake O’Regan (Kilkee CC) and Sean Tobin (High School, Clonmel) come home unchallenged in their respective senior 5,000m andintermediate 3,000m.

O’Regan, who is coached by former Providence College athlete Dermot Galvin, went on to win in a time of 16:33.22 while Tobin, who ran 8:33.51 for the distance last week to qualify for both World andEuropean Youth championships, was happy with his 8:53.37.