Craughwell AC’s U11 Squad at the Connacht Championships in Claremorris

Yet another brilliant day of athletics from the club on yet another day of challenging weather conditions. The day kicked off with the relays where the club had some outstanding performances taking all 4 Connacht titles in the boys races and bronze in the U9, U10 and U11 girls relays and 4th place in the U12 girls relay. Huge achievements all around! Full details of our performances are below. Well done to everyone!!

Hats off to Claremorris AC on their fine facilities – something that our parents and athletes know we are aspiring to ourselves on our new field in Craughwell. Before you read on I just want to take a brief opportunity to highlight our efforts in this regard and the need for your support. We hope to receive significant grant aid to construct our own tartan sprint lanes and additional long jump facilities this year but need to fund-raise €40,000 to accompany the grant and loans. Please support our GWR relay challenge by raising €100 per family – this will bring in most of what we need. We are trying to maximise the funds raised during June and will be holding the relay in September. If you don’t already have a sponsorship card, please ask any coach or contact myself at 087 6591879 or tobinm1@yahoo.com. Please bring your completed sponsorship cards up to training as early as possible and give to your age group coordinator, thanks!!

Amidst blustery showers, the relays were the first event to get underway. With all relays being decided on times and qualification for the All-Irelands at stake in the younger ages, it was an exciting 90 minutes of action. The U9 girls ran brilliantly in the first set of races to take 3rd place. They were followed quickly by 2 fine performances by the U9 boys to win both heats and take 1st and 4th place, just losing out on the bronze by 5 hundredth of a second (less than a foot!). The U11s went really close to taking 2 sets of medals in each of their relays with the girls taking 3rd place and their second team taking 6th place just 1 second behind, while the boys took a splendid Connacht title with their second team missing out on bronze by the slim margin of 0.4 of a second when taking 5th place. The U12s rounded off the relay performances with the boys taking the Connacht title ahead of National champions Ballainsloe and their second team placing 12th and the girls just missing out on bronze when placing 4th and their other teams placing 9th and 10th.

Full details of the Craughwell relays, times and places are as follows:-

In the paired events in the U9, 10 and 11 age groups, the club had some magnificent performances with 22 sets of athletes making it to the podium and qualifying for the All-Irelands, almost one-third of the qualifiers in those events. The qualifiers go forward to the All-Irelands finals which will be held in Tullamore on Sat 27th June. The following is a full list of how we fared in those age group, with qualifiers highlighted in red. There were many fine performances and several 4th and 5th placings that went very close to qualifying. Special mention to Aoibhe Carr who had some fantastic long jumps in the U11s but broke marginally each time – very unlucky as each of the breaks was a big jump.

In the U12 age group, the competition is an individual event rather than paired and the top 4 individuals in each age group go forward to the National finals in July. Liam McDonagh led the way with gold in the turbo javelin with an impressive 25.21m throw and bronze in the shot putt with 7.57m. Lukas Schukat took 2nd place in the long jump with a 3.80m leap with Liam Mulveen in 3rd with 3.70m. Lukas also took 4th place in the high jump with 1.25m to make it to the All-Irelands. Oisin Keane placed 2nd in the turbo javelin with a fine 24.75m throw. Rosemary Maduka completed the qualifiers in this age group when placing 4th in both the shot putt (6.72m) and turbo javelin (15.03m).

In the sprints, Robert Urquhart was the leading sprinter from the club, winning his heat and taking 3rd in the semis before going onto to place 7th in the final of the 80m in an impressive time of 9.06. Rebekah Flynn was the club’s leading girls long jumper, placing 5th with a 3.75m PB while Saoirse Moore underlined her multi-talents with 5th place in the high jump (1.20m) and 10th place in the 600m (2.09.03). Other results in this age group were as follows – well done to all on many PBs :-

Full results of the day’s events are here:- Connacht-U912Results2015.pdf