Loughnane settles for silver

OLIVE LOUGHNANE (Loughrea AC) had to settle for the silver medal in the 20km event at yesterday’s Athletics Ireland International Grand Prix of Race Walking in the Phoenix Park.

Loughnane came through strongly in the second half of the event to take the second spot in 1:31.44 behind Liu Hong of China who won in 1:29.44.

It was a disappointing day for Robert Heffernan (Togher AC) who was forced to drop out of the men’s 20km event after just six kilometres.

Heffernan was suffering from a ‘tight hamstring’ and decided to exercise caution to avert a more serious injury.

On a busy weekend in athletics, there were records broken in Saturday’s Aviva Inter Provincial Tailteann Games Schools’ Track & Field competition in Santry where Siofra Cleirigh Buttner (Coláiste Iosagan) won the girls’ 800m in 2:07.78 in very windy conditions and Karl Griffin (Abbey Vocational School) was also in record breaking form in the boys’ race –winning in 1:5461. Jessie Sheehan (Kinsale) set a record in the triple jump of 11.37 metres.

At yesterday’s Woodie’s DIY National Junior & U23 Track & Field Championships in Tullamore, Killian Barry of Crusaders AC won an absorbing junior hammer competition with was a national junior record of 68.38m. Barry and Dempsey McGuigan (Finn Valley AC) were locked in close competition before Barry delivered his big throw.

Mark English (Letterkenny AC) won the junior men’s 800m title in 1:54 55 and his club mate Darren McBrearty won the U23 title in 1:51.57 from Antony Leghio (Tallaght AC), 1:51.71. However, Darren McBrearty was denied a double when he was beaten in the under 23 1500m by Paul Robinson, (St Coca’s AC) who won gold in 3:54.37.