| Just a handful of Leevale athletes made the long trip to Belfast over the weekend for the national indoor track and field championships. Held for the first time at the impressive Odyssey Arena the championships must be regarded a resounding success. Leevale was well represented in the sprints. In the 60m Jer O’Donoghue clocked a PB of 6.88 en route to a fifth place finish. however he did receive the bronze medal after guests were excluded. He was closely tracked by Sean Manning who finished one place further back – his best time of the weekend 7.08, and a sprinter that is improving with every outing. Darren O’Brien missed out on a place in the final but clocked a handy 7.18 in the heats. Sean and Darren also ran the 200m clocking 23.70 and 24.43 respectively. In the 400m Paddy O’Gorman was in flying form, failing by one place to make the four man final. He had the satisfaction of winning the B final in a time of 49.34 after running 50.23 and 49.09 in the qualifying rounds.  In the women’s 60m Ailis McSweeney was a good fourth in the final with a time of 7.68 after clocking 7.75 in the heats. In the 200m she had a best of 25.58.Susan O’Reilly had a best time of 61.55 in the 400m, with Niamh Cremin at 63.37. Derval O’Rourke, now with UCD, was again in flying form, winning the 60m hurdles impressively in a new CBP 8.25. Stateside, Leevale’s Brendan Fitzgibbon (pictured) ran his first race since last April at the UW meet in Seattle. Running his first race after injury problems, he died a little in the last 600m, finishing 8th in a time of 8:08.85, a new PB for him. Leevale’s on the spot reporter Alan Triggs confirmed that Brendan will be returning for cross country nationals next month. |