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U16's take Gold & Silver in 7k Marathon

                                                       

     Finbarr McFadden & Kyle Moorhead, Silver & Gold Medalists in the Galway Community Games X Country Finals in Tuam today      

                                   

Two of the Club's U16 runners  took part in the Galway Community Games 7k Marathon earlier today in Tuam. After the earlier cross country races had finished, and the athletes and parents had dwindled away, the Marathon runners were left to race it out for the medals. The race started in the park before the runners took to the roads of Tuam to run, what turned out to be, two 4k loops - making it an 8k race. 

After the first 4k Kyle Moorhead and Finbarr McFadden were neck and neck leading the race with Kyle then slowly beginning to pull away during the second loop. They both held these positions to the end to take the Gold and Silver medals and the opportunity to participate in the Community Games All Ireland's during the summer. 

Luke Flynn Takes Silver in Galway U13 XCountry

Luke Flynn, silver medallist in the
Galway Community Games U13 Cross Country Finals

Craughwell athletes took part in the Community Games cross-country for the first time in several years today in Tuam. Luke Flynn put in an exceptional performance in the U13 Boys 1200m to take the silver medal – one of his finest races to date.

Likewise, Clodagh O’Meara and Fauve Aylmer both had outstanding runs in the U13 Girls 1200m with Clodagh racing to the bronze medal when finishing 3rd and Fauve taking 6th place on very swampy terrain in the Palace Grounds. The athletes now look forward to the All-Ireland finals which will be held in early May.

Clodagh O'Meara and Fauve Aylmer who placed 3rd and 6th in the
Galway Community Games U13 Girls Cross Country Finals

Battle in Belfast

                                                _{Junior girls (Sarah Woods & Ciara Sheppard) at the start line}

Craughwell AC had a very successful day yesterday when some of our finest cross country runners travelled up to Belfast for the All Ireland Schools Cross Country Championships. The competition took place in the "playing fields", Mallusk on what turned out to be, a beautiful, mild spring day. 10 athletes represented 2 schools (Presentation College, Athenry, & Calasanctius College, Oranmore). We must not forget that 1,000's of athletes have begun this battle to get to the All Irelands and to earn a place in this final is a great achievement. 

The first Craughwell athlete to race was Liam Leen (minor boy), who as per his usual style, held a strong position from begining to end, to storm in through the shoots in 45th position. A proud moment for the Presentation College, Athenry as he also claimed, 6th Connacht runner to finish. 

Junior girls were next and with the mud and rain from the previous day having played havoc on the ground, there were some last minute procrastinations over whether the largest spikes (pins) that could be found that morning, would indeed be of any benefit at all, and that wellies might in fact be the safest option. Winner of the Intermediate girls ran the entire race with one spike on and one spike off (having lost her spike early on in the race). Our junior girls; Ciara, Sarah and Freya eagerly and strongly pulled out from the madding crowd to push themselves up amongst the middle set of runners. Their finishing posiitons were; Ciara Sheppard (Calasanctius College), 53rd (6th Connacht girl in), Sarah Woods (Pres, Athenry), 69th and Freya Bohen (Pres), 75th. 

We also had some fantastic finishes for the junior boys, with Kyle Moorhead charging to the finish in 38th place (7th Connacht), (Kyle has leapt a massive 64  places up from his placing in last years schools x country final). Both Oisin Davis and James Furey had fine finishes coming in 81st and 96th. 

Ailbhe Miskella (Pres), who was our only intermediate girl (and having another year to run in this category) had a superb race to finish in 50th place and cross the line as the 5th Connacht runner.  

Grainne McDaid (Pres), running in the senior girls race (almost the last race of the day), had to battle through some tough terrain and incredibly muddy conditions caused by the previous races and had a strong 61st finishing place.

This is the end of a very successful season for our Cross Country Craughwell athletes who have all proved their strength of character and determination to train hard for competition and endure whatever our Irish weather throws at them. 

Craughwell Kingpins at Connacht Indoors

Senior Men's 4x200m relay teams who won silver at the Connacht Indoor Track & Field in Athlone
Ben Garrard, Gavin Cooney, John Cormican, Jerry Keary

Read more: Craughwell Kingpins at Connacht Indoors

Craughwell 10 News.

With less than a month to go to Craughwell 10 Mile Road Race preparations are well under way. It's been a busy week of entries so don't forget to register here: http://www.active.com/craughwell-galway/running/distance-running-races/craughwell-10-2017?int= 

This year we are delighted to announce that  Revive Active are our main sponsors you can see their range of products here https://reviveactive.com/  

This year the category prizes are as follows 

1st 2nd 3rd lady

1st 2nd 3rd male

first lady over 40

First male over 40

First lady over 50

First male over 50

First lady over 60

First male over 60

We have added 10th male and female this year!!! Revive Active have kindly donated hampers as prizes another great reason to Enter this great race.

Have a look at this link for map of NEW route and addtional information.

Looking forward to welcoming you all on the 19th of March.

http://ie.mapometer.com/events/event/Craughwell_10_2017 

Maeve Curley marks return with National Bronze!

Maeve Curley, bronze medallist in the National Senior 3k race walk
at the new National Indoor Arena in Abbotstown Dublin

Read more: Maeve Curley marks return with National Bronze!

Statistics from Scotland

In the beginning - Glasgow 2008

I have updated a roll of honour of medallists in the Scottish Indoor Track & Field:-

http://www.craughwellac.com/site/images/statistics/RollOfHonourScottishIndoorTrackAndField.pdf

Some interesting snippets:-

• We have won a total of 17 medals in these championships - 12 jumps and 5 track
  
  
• Jerry Keary becomes the first person from the club to win medals on 2 different trips to Scotland
  
  
• Evan Hallinan becomes the first boy from the club to win 2 medals on same trip
  
  
• 5 of the medals were won in the U13 grade
  
  
• 4 of the medals in the U14/15 grade
  
  
• 5 of the medals in the U16/17 grade
  
  
• 3 of the medals in the U18/20 grade

Our Lotto Jackpot Hits €9500!!

Our Lotto jackpot, in association with Croi, hits €9500 this week. If you are not in, you can't win.

So if you want to give your heart an extra flutter, click on the picture across to get to the webpage for entering the Lotto.

And in the process raise much needed funds for our athletics facility development and for the great work that Croi does in fighting heart and stroke disease.

If you subscribed last year, have a quick check of whether you auto-renewed or not as the period for which you subscribed may be up.

Program for Connacht Indoors 25/26 Feb 2017

The provisional program for the Connacht Indoors is available at the following links:-

• Day 1 Saturday 25 Feb U12s and U13s
  
  
• Day 2 Sunday 26 Feb U14s up to Seniors
  
  

Note that its not possible to guess times of individual events until the list of entries is published. So for example ithe first long jump is at 10am on Saturday. If there are 20 participants, it will take approx an hour. If there are 40 participants, it will take approx 2 hours. I will update this page with some guesswork if the entry list is published beforehand.

Craughwell AC U13s Dominate AIT Grand Prix!

The victorious Craughwell AC U13 4x200m relay teams with team managers Helen Hallinan and Mairead Lavan

On a marvellous night of athletics at the AIT Grand Prix, the cool calm and clinical Craughwell U13 relays stole the show in the opening events of the night when winning both relays with an exquisite display of sprinting and baton changing from all members of the 2 teams.

The girls were on the track first and with Katie Scully handing off to Jade Moorhead to Aoibhe Carr to Fauve Aylmer the team combined to build a substantial lead over the other teams and win in style. Ablely backed up by substitute Clodagh O'Meara, the team ran an impressive time of 2.02.

The boys were up next and put in an equally powerful display of sprinting with Evan Moran handing off to Evan Hallinan to Conor Gilligan and to Cian Lavan, recording a time just under the 2 minutes and winning by a substantial margin and again with a very strong substitute Eoin Spellman waiting on the wings should anyone get injured.

It was a super experience for the athletes and a great honour for both them and the club to take part and come away with 2 victories. In the 3 years since this event was part of the progam, this is the second time the club took both victories, winning both races in 2015 and 2017 and placing 3rd and 4th last year.

And well done to AIT on putting on a tremendous show yet again with a dazzling array of international stars in action. And hopefully we will all be back again next year for the yet another amazng night of athletics!

And if you missed the action, you can get it here:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vwV5Jw7OxM. The relays are the first event but unfortunately don't seem to have been on the live stream.

I have uploaded a video of the 2 races here:-

• U13 Girls 4x200m
• U13 Boys 4x200m

Great Weekend at Scottish Indoors!

Jerry Keary, Aoife Walsh and Ben Garrard at day 1 
of the Scottish Indoor Track & Field Championships in the Emirates Arena in Glasgow

A large group of athletes made the trip to Glasgow at the weekend to take part in the Scottish Indoor Track and Field Championships for the U20, U15 and U13 age groups. It was the largest group ever from the club to travel to Scotland since our first trip in 2008 when 27 athletes made the short journey across the waters. This time 23 athletes made the trip and the group was nicely supplemented by 6 athletes from the club’s fit4youth group with Ailvhe Martyn, Kate Craven, Alison Coye, Lauren Stewart, Andrea Treacy and Gearoid Treacy all taking part in the local 5k Park Run. The entire group were exceptionally well behaved for the whole trip and are a real credit to their parents and to ther club and performed with distinction in their events in Scotland.

At the track and field, the club came away with 4 medals, several top 8 performances and many personal best performances. Saturday kicked off the with the U20 Womens Long Jump where Aoife Walsh was taking part ... Aoife had very impressive first and second jumps which looked to be over the 5m mark but with tiny breaks and a conservative 3rd jump of 4.32m placed her 13th in the competition. Jerry Keary was next in action in the U20 Mens Long Jump and recorded a massive PB of almost 50cm to leap 6.19m on his first jump and in the process set a new club junior indoor record eclipsing Daniel Callanan-Forde’s 6.15m record from last year. Jerry however had to pass on his remaining jumps due to a slight niggle picked up in round 2 but his 6.19m was good enough to place 5th overall.

Laura Cunningham - bronze medallist  in the U20 Womens High Jump at the Scottish Indoor Track & Field Championships

Jerry Keary - bronze medallist  in the U20 Mens High Jump at the Scottish Indoor  Championships

Read more: Great Weekend at Scottish Indoors!

Connacht Schools X Country Finals 7th Feb

Many of the clubs’ secondary schools’ athletes headed to Sligo yesterday for the Connacht Schools Cross Country Finals. Calry Community Park lived up to its reputation as being one of the “muckiest”, toughest cross country courses. Yesterday possibly beat all other years on the mud scale!!!

Arriving to Sligo the weather was beautiful with bright sunny skies, and one would have thought clean, dry fields. This wasn’t to be the case. There are plenty of weary muscles today as legs had to work twice as hard to pull the feet up out of the mud at every step of the way.  Endurance runners are hardy and brave, and none of this phased them as they hit the battle field.

First to run were the Minor girls, with Emily Miskella (17^th), Molly Sullivan (21^st), Rebecca Flynn (29^th), Ava Finn (31^st) and Emma Jane Moran (46^th) all from the Presentation College Athenry.  With so many of the girls in the top 30, it was a pity to see the narrow margin that left them missing out in qualifying as a team for the All Irelands. Other athletes running include; Chloe Farragher (32^nd)-St Brigids, Loughrea, Lauren McNally (44^th) – St. Raphael’s, Loughrea and Hannah Hynes (56^th) - Calasanctius College, Oranmore.

The Minor boys were next and Liam Leen charged out into the lead where he dominated the entire race, until the last 150m where he was just overtaken on the home straight by two athletes.  Somewhere along the course his shoe came off and he was seen crossing the finish line (shoe in his hand). His fine performance earned him a bronze medal and qualification to the Schools X Country All Irelands. Conor Hoade also had a fine race coming in at 37^th place. Presentation College, Athenry took the bronze team medal.

As if it wasn’t muddy enough, with two races completed the Junior girls had a tough race ahead with conditions underfoot extremely slippery.  At one part of the course, you could see athletes actually sliding down the hill that they had battled to climb. The first Craughwell girl over the line was Ciara Sheppard (Calasanctius College), who I would say ran her finest race to date. Ciara has been struggling with an injury over the past 6 months, and only recently came back to regular training. She has put in a tremendous effort over the past few months, which really paid off today in Calry and coming in 15^th place earned her a place in the Schools All Irelands. There were other great performances from Sarah Woods (25^th), who held her position throughout the race (and who is going from strength to strength with each race she has run this season), and Freya Bohan (30^th) who helped the Presentation College Athenry to a Bronze Medal and a qualification to the All Irelands in Belfast next month.

In the Junior boys’ category, the Connacht Silver Team Medal was won by Presentation College Athenry and again saw superb performances by our Craughwell boys, with Kyle Moorhead leading the team coming in at 17^th place, followed by Oisin Davis, 28^th place (Oisin has recently been spotted running up and down Caherquin Rd. with his dad which has earned him this fine place in the team finish) and James Furey 71^st.

Connacht Schools X Country Silver Team Medallists (Pres, Athenry) Intermediate girls, included Ailbhe Miskella and Catherine Noonan, who both ran extremely well to finish in 10^th and 23^rd positions, with Ailbhe making it to the finals as an individual.

Sean Noonan and Finbarr McFadden featured strongly on the Intermediate Boys Pres team, and held their places in the top 30 and top 40 throughout the race, to charge to the finish line, with Finbarr coming in at 26^th place finish and Sean 43^rd. Missing from the Craughwell Boys was Patrick Noonan who unfortunately fell sick this week. 

Ciara O’Boyle, Grainne McDaid and Aoife Greene all took well-earned breaks from Leaving Cert study to travel up to Sligo and run in the Senior girls’ race. All athletes performed extremely well coming in at 9^th place (Grainne), 15^th place (Aoife Greene) and 25^th place (Ciara O’Boyle).

Taking into consideration the extreme conditions all athletes showed great determination and strength.

Let’s not forget to thank all the parents who travelled up and supported the athletes.