Sligo AC News: What a weekend for Sligo athletes!

The 2 gold medals from James Mcgeough and Anna Reddin in their respective races were the highlight of a very successful weekend for young Sligo athletes. The weekend got off to a great start with David lynch running a fine race in the u-15 hurdles to finish 5th in his heat, Conal Boal finished 5th in the u-19 boys javelin final, throwing short of his best which would have grabbed him a silver if produced. Both Kerrs, Graham and Stacey cruised through their 80m heats in fine style with victories but later in the day they both had to settle for 4th place finishes, Graham missing out on bronze by 100th of a second but both athletes can be proud of their achievemnets as a sprint final is so hard to make. Graham went onto finish 12th in the long jump the next day and Stacey now focuses on the 200m in 2 week's time where she has already had the benefit of training sessions with Paul Hession. There was also an excellent performance by Rianne McHugh in the girls u-19 400m final where she finished 7th. Onto the Sunday and the turn of the distance athletes. Caelinn McGonigle stepped up first in the u-13 girls 600m where she ran a blinder to finish 4th place in the final and will learn a lot from this, next came Claire Conlon who ran her heart out in the u-15 girls 800m final as did Shane Kilcawley in the u-17 boys 800m final where he finished a very credible 8th place and not far off the winner at all. Colm Bourke did really well finishing 9th in the triple jump after contesting the long jump the day before. Now onto the 3,000m races where in the u-16 boys we had 2 of the most up and coming distance runners in Sligo lining out in James McGeough and Aisham Patil. After 1 false start they got on their way with a bit of a pile up at the start. James avoided all but Aisham took a spike, a push and ended up hurdling 2 lads. After lap 1 James was settled nicely in 2nd with Aisham cutting through the field onto his heels in 4th. As the race progressed McGeough made a decisive move at 1,500m to take up the running and moved well away from the field, never to be caught and record his first All Ireland title with Aisham finishing a very credible 4th place. Next up showed a real return to form from Anna Reddin, an injury packed preparation for the schools track and field showed Anna finishing 5th that day in a time of 11min 12 seconds less than 1 month later she comes out to win the u-19 girls 3000m in a time of 10min 44 seconds at her ease. This was down to her true determination and drive to succeed as not many 17 year old girls would get up at 7am and head to the pool to aqua jog for 3 months every second morning through their easter holidays. Well done to all athletes at the weekend and the best of luck to all athletes making the trip to the 2nd weekend of Nationals in under 3 weeks where we can look forward to Dylan Carty in the walk, Stacey Kerr in the 200m and Anna Reddin & Aisham Patil in the 1,500m. On the senior front, Sligo AC's Emmett Dunleavy had a fine race in Belgium over 3000m, finishing 4th in 8:16.26 a PB by 2 seconds. This sets him up nicely for the 3000m steeplechase which he will be competing in this weekend. The best of luck to him in his endeavours from all at the club.