Finnegan claims 1,500m gold at Youth Olympics

RUAIRI FINNEGAN (Letterkenny AC), a finalist at the world youths championships a couple of weeks ago, claimed the gold medal in the 1,500m at the European Youth Olympics in Trabzon, Turkey, yesterday.

The youngster, whose clubmates Mark English and Darren McBrearty competed in the recent European junior and U23 championships respectively, was maintaining the big run of success enjoyed by Irish athletes at underage level in recent weeks.

After leading the pack throughout the race he sprinted clear with 120m remaining to win convincingly in 3:53.78 with Samuele Dini (Italy) winning the battle for the silver medal in 3:54.45. Ireland last won a gold medal in the 1500m back in 2003 when Colin Costello won the gold medal at the European junior championships. Earlier that year he claimed silver in a time of 3.58.58 at the at the EYOF’s.

And there was another silver medal for Ireland yesterday when Síofra Cleirigh Buttner (DSD) took second place in the girls’ 1,500m in 4:26.42 after an enthralling last lap battle with Sophie Riches (Great Britain) who eventually escaped from the diminutive Dubliner to claim victory in 4:25.95.

Ciara Mageean won this event in 2009 before going on to claim a silver medal at the world youth and junior championships and another silver at last weekend’s European junior championships while another DSD athlete, Maria Lynch, took bronze back in 1995.

Marcus Lawler (St Laurence O’Toole’s, Carlow), who turned in some brilliant performances at the world youths championships in Lille, again broke his own national youths record when he won his heat in 21.62 seconds to qualify for the final of the boys’ 200m while Ciara Giles Doran (Ferrybank AC) qualified for the semi-finals of the girls’ 200m by finishing second in her heat in 24.62 seconds.

Waterford twins, Megan and Ben Kiely (Ferrybank AC) both qualified for the finals of the 400m hurdles. Megan was second in her heat in 61.28 seconds and Ben is third fastest going into the boys’ final after finishing third in his heat in 53.86 seconds.

Megan is second fastest of the girls’ finalists and it is another remarkable achievement for the Ferrybank hurdlers after Jessie Barr made the final of the women’s 400m hurdles, breaking the national U23 record, at the European U23 championships in Ostrava. Her brother, Thomas, broke the Irish junior and U23 records en route to the final of the men’s 400m hurdles at last week’s European junior championships in Tallinn.

Almost 4,000 athletes from 49 countries are competing at the games. Ireland is represented with a squad of over 50 athletes in five sports.