Craughwell AC’s older juveniles had an amazing day at the U13-19 Connacht Championships in Athlone with over 60 athletes taking part and capturing a massive haul of 30 Connacht titles and 30 silver/bronze podium places. Following are summary details until results published – I will update with sprint times, jumps etc at that stage.

Full results published 21 June .. see links at end of this article.

The club particularly shone in the sprints where Michelle Duggan landed a hat-trick of Connacht titles in the U15 girls 100m, 200m and 80m hurdles and brother Conor (unhappy to let his younger sister take all the glory!) repeated the feat in the U17 grade with Connacht titles in 100m, 200m and 100m hurdles. Conor’s time of 23.25 was particularly impressive in the 200m.

Cillian Dolan almost did the same with a sprint double in the U15 100m and 200m beating some notable Connacht athletes in the process.

Cillian’s achievements are a great advertisement for having an openness to compete in multiple sports. When you go back in history, some of the greatest team sportsmen of all time also excelled in athetics. Having competed in athletics for a few years when much younger, Cillian’s focus switched exclusively to the team sports where he continues to excel (e.g. Craughwell United’s player of the year this year). Then this year he competed in the sprints in the Secondary Schools Track & Field where he put in some fantastic performances culminating in a silver medal at the Connacht finals. This whetted his appetite for an individual sport to supplement his team sports and he was richly rewarded with the sprint double last Sunday ahead of some top quality sprinters.

Double gold was also the order of the day for

– Sineád Treacy in the U17 long jump and 200m, adding silver in the 100m for good measure.

– Matthew McKiernan in the U16 boys’ long jump (5.04m) and triple jump (10.67m)

– Aoife Walshe in the U14 girls’ grade where she leaped a PB of 1.46m to claim the high jump title and jumped 4.52m to take the long jump title.

– Cian Waters in the U14 boys’ shot putt (11.08m) and 75m hurdles

– Oisin Lyons in the U14 800m and 1500m

– Michael Hand in the U13 javelin and shot putt, adding silver in the high jump despite struggling with a leg injury

Michelle Duggan, Dearbhaile Walshe, Aoife Greene enjoying their successes at the Connacht Championships!

The sprints success continued with silver for Claire Ryder in the U18 100m, triple silver for Tara McNally in the U16 100m, 200m and 80m hurdles, silver for Daniel Callanan-Forde in the U14 80m and bronze in the 75m hurdles, and bronze for Miriam Lacey in the U17 400m. Siona Lawless was unlucky to just miss the podium with a 4th place finish in the final of the U13 girls 80m as was Oisin Shannon in the final of both the U13 boys 80m and 60m hurdles.

The club continued to be the dominant Connacht club in the jumps with a string of fine performances. Aaron McDonnell, another athlete to make a return to athletics after a multi-year break, had a big leap of 5.37m to take the silver medal in the U18 long jump; Ellen Treacy took bronze in the the U17 long jump; Jordan Connaughton took bronze in the U16 long jump; Aoife Greene took bronze in the U15 high jump with a new PB of 1.40m with Tammy Klynsmith in 4th with 1.25m; Tara Slattery placed 3rd in the U13 high jump with Eabha Leech and Niamh Treacy in joint 4th; Alison Leahy placed 4th in the U13 long jump with a leap of 4.04m.

Craughwell U14 Girls 4x100m – Silver Medalists at the Connacht T&F

In the U14 grade, Lorraine Delaney continued to make huge progress since taking up the sport last September when taking silver in the long jump with 4.41m and bronze in the high jump. Laura Cunningham made it a very rewarding day for the club when taking 4th place in the U14 girls with a new PB of 4.16m – resulting in 3 of the top 4 being Craughwell AC members. Ciana Reidy leaped a PB of 1.35m to place 4th in the U14 high jump – making it 3 of the top 4 in that event also.

The U14 boys were equally impressive with Daniel Callanan-Forde claiming silver in the long jump with 4.81m and Sean Delaney and Jerry Keary both clearing 1.50m to take the top 2 places in the high jump with gold going to Sean on count-back. This was Daniel’s first time in action since a bad break of his arm at the National Indoor finals when he fell awkwardly in the long jump pit on his 2nd jump – so to get a big PB on his first competitive outing since then was fantastic.

Craughwell U14 Boys 4x100m – Gold Medalists at the Connacht T&F

Due to exams, our elite distance runners were not out in their usual force in the Connacht championships but we still saw some fantastic runs from Nicholas Sheehan with gold in the U18 800m, John Cormican gold in the U18 1500m and silver in the 800m, Damien O’Boyle gold in the U17 1500m, Oisin Doyle silver in the U16 1500m, Liam Moran silver in the U15 1500m, Dearbhaile Walshe double bronze in the U15 800m and 1500m, Ciara O’Boyle silver in the U15 250m hurdles (47.91), Aoife Greene 4th in the U15 800m and Adam Heneghan 4th in the U13 600m. It was a particularly impressive performance from Adam in his first outing in the club championships as he finished 4th by less than a metre from Sligo’s Jack Cawley who took bronze in the National Indoor 600m and behind Ballinasloe’s Shane Jennings and Athenry’s Brandon Lee who took gold and silver in last year’s National Outdoor 600m – impressive running from Adam in his debut race!

In the throws, as well as the aforementioned golds Cathal O’Brien took gold in the U16 shot putt with 11.26m; Ellen Fitzpatrick took gold in the U17 javelin; Mark O’Brien took silver in the U14 shot putt with 9.36m, gold in the discus with 15.98m and bronze in the javelin with 15.71m; Shauna Tobin gold in the U14 discus; Niamh Treacy bronze in the U13 javelin; Sarah Callanan bronze in the U13 shot putt.

Craughwell U13 Girls 4x100m – Bronze Medalists at the Connacht T&F

The 4x100m relays took place at the end of a long day where the U13 girls placed 3rd with Alison Leahy, Finola Kelly, Roisin Hansbury and Siona Lawless (sub Tara Slattery), the U14 girls placed 2nd with Caolin Milton, Aoife Walshe, Laura Cunningham and Lorraine Delaney (subs Amy Touhy, Shauna Tobin), the U14 boys claimed gold with Sean Delaney, Cian Waters, Oisin Lyons and Daniel Callanan-Forde (sub Micheál McFadden) and the U15 girls claimed gold with Eimear Loughnane, Dearbhaile Walshe, Aoife Greene and Michelle Duggan.

Full results are as follows:-

• track
• field
• high jump