Sligo AC National League News

Last Sunday week (July 5th) in Athlone was a historical day for athletics in Sligo. For the first time a team from the county qualified for the national league final. However it took a mammoth performance from the squad to pull through and qualification hung in the balance right down to the last event of the day.

After Round 1 in Antrim, Sligo laid 10th overall in Division 1 with a tally of 76 points. This left a lot of work to be done in Round 2 in order to leap-frog the two squads between ourselves and a spot in the final. The Yeats County started positively with strong performances from David Burke in the hurdles and Martin Conroy in the walk. On the infield, the youthful bunch of throwers and jumpers were performing significantly better than Round 1. The 4 x 100m quartet scorched to a 3rd place finish and Dromore West man Gary Hynes was next to get in on the Sligo scoring frenzy, as he garnered a total of 10 points from the 100m and 200m.

Sligo has traditionally been a county of strong middle distance runners. Hence the distance squad really needed to bring their A game to proceedings and they didn’t disappoint. Tommy Carroll and Martin Conroy both chalked up second place finishes in the 800m and 1500m respectively. Sligo’s first win of the day came in the 3000m steeplechase and shortly afterwards, Dermot McDermott produced a withering kick to take Sligo’s second win and the full 9 points in the 5,000m.

So it all came down to the traditional finale, the 4x400m relay. David Burke led off with a very solid opening 400. By the end of the second leg Emmett Dunleavy had squeezed into the top 5, before “player- manager” Dermot McDermott took the baton. His sizzling 52 second split pushed the team into 3rd, before handing off to Tommy Carroll for an epic anchor leg. All credit to the St Mary’s student as he dug deep to haul Sligo into second place, just 8 hundredths of a second shy of Kerry and a mere 1 second outside the county record. More importantly the final points showed Sligo on 96.5. Third position on the day, 7th place overall and securely into the final.

Thoughts now turn to the final to be held in Tullamore on Saturday August 8th. Hopefully as many sports fans as possible from the county will come down to support, what will surely be another afternoon of close competition and high drama.