January '23 Round Up

Incredible performances from Sorcha and Poppi yesterday at the Munster Indoors. They secured silver and bronze medals respectively. Well done girls!!!

Poppi Devereux and Sorcha Kilgannon were our sole participants at the All Ireland Junior and Under 23 Indoor Championships on Saturday January 14th taking place in The National Indoor arena Abbotstown.

Usually a trip to Abbotstown would mean Cross Country from which both of these Athletes would have taken All Ireland medals back to Tower Park. On this occasion it was Pole Vault with both Girls at just 16 yrs of age competing against the best vaulters in the Country at Junior level (U20).

Both opened at 2 metres 50 and cleared comfortably at the first attempt. Poppi failed all 3 attempts at 2.65 which is well below her best, but sport brings great highs as well as lows and Poppi will be back in form in no time with plenty of competitions on the horizon. Sorcha cleared first time at 2.65, 2.80 and looked like coming unstuck at 2.95 before sailing over on her final attempt and recording a new PB in doing so. 3 attempts at 3.10 seen the bar coming crashing down and unfortunately missed out on Bronze due to clearing 2.95 on her third attempt with the medalist clearing on her second.

Next up for the Girls will be their own age group indoor competition and also a trip to Cardiff in March to compete at Vault Cardiff, which is the biggest Vaulting competition in the UK bringing Athletes and Coaches together from all over the UK and Ireland.

Well done girls

The Weekend of January 21st saw the Inaugural Winter League coming to a close with two 7k events taking place.

Friday evening was damp and murky, a big change from the frost early in the week as the high viz crew set out on the Time Trial from Jysk to the end of the prom and back. The ever impressive Micheal Cronin came home first in a superb 28:34 followed by the fast improving Shane Greene in 29:37 and in doing so accumulated the points to have an unassailable lead going into our last race. The battle for second was going to go down to the wire in event 7 with Conor Goulding, Ted Kelly, Donal Sheehan and Ian Murphy tightly bunched.

A trip to Anfield for Ian Murphy seen him drop out of contention as Ted Kelly jumped him. Ted was also in Anfield but made the start line on Sunday Morning.

Sundays race over the same course was on a handicapped basis and very impressive times were recorded. When adjustments were done and handicaps applied there was only 2 minutes and 13 seconds from first to final finisher. Maurice Welsh took the top spot with Ted Kelly next and Conor Goulding 3rd breaking the 35 minute mark in the process. Nuala Cooper was going into the last race also with an unassailable lead in the Ladies standings and compounded this with 12 points on the day.

The format of the league gives everyone equal opportunity but attending is vital to score points. Our top points scorers all ran in at least 6 of the 7 events.

The first 3 Males are

1st Shane Greene 129 points

2nd Donal Sheehan 104 points

3rd Ted Kelly 94 points

Leading Ladies

1st Nuala Cooper 74 points

2nd Patricia Hogan 51 points

3rd Sally O'Brien 40 points.

It is hoped to have a similarly formatted league during the late spring early summer and we would encourage all members to take part.

Presentations for 1st and 2nd Male and Female will take place in the Nook on Sunday February 4th at our social gathering after the John Tracey 10 Mile Race in Dungarvan.

We look forward to seeing you all there........

Congratulations to Avril Millerick on running for Ireland in the World Athletics Gold Cross Country Tour "Crosscup de Hannut", Belgium last Sunday where she placed 14th overall in the U20 women's event...

10K Ibiza Platja D’en Bossa (Sunday 29th January)

Congratulations to Fearghal Curtin who completed his first 10k road race on a very cold and wet morning in Ibiza. He completed in a time of 28.24 and battled it out with the European 10K record holder in the last 400m. He was the first European across the line while wearing the Youghal AC hoops. Fearghal was 8th Overall. A great start to 2023. 

County Board Awards (Sunday 29th January)

Well done to this talented group of young athletes L to R: Alex Cashman, Avril Millerick, Robyn Buckley, Emma Landers & Avril Cashman at the County Board Awards night accepting their Aspiring Young Athlete bursaries.