AMENDED 3rd March

The cross country season just finished was dominated by our underage athletes, and though some still have the Schools All-Ireland on Saturday 7th March, many headed to Nenagh on Sat/Sun 28th Feb/1st March for the Leinster Indoors in pursuit of further honours and qualification for the National Finals. For some, this was their first time to compete for the Club, for others their first time indoors, but for many it was a return to very familiar territory. Unsurprisingly, our middle distance athletes continued their dominance from the cross country, but there were also some fantastic performances across a range of events and the bus home on Sunday night was laden down with medals.

SATURDAY

1,500m
We got off to a good start on the Saturday morning for the 1,500m events where Stephen Nea and Ian McCormack (under 16) competed well for their first time indoors, but finished out of the medals. First medal came courtesy of Amie Giles (u/17) winning silver, and in the next race, Thomas Fagan (u/17) also won bronze, with Shane Kelleher and Adam Daly not far behind but out of the medal places. Vincent Connolly (u/18) ran a great race and was unlucky to finish just out of the medals in 4th place but still qualifies for the National Finals.

300m/400m
Rachel Yorke (u/18) competed for the first time in a Club vest in an unfamiliar event, the 300m but with three heats and only the four fastest to qualify for the final it was a difficult task but she still ran very well on the tight indoor bends and will have learned for the outdoor season. No problem for David Moran (u/18) as he qualified comfortably from his 400m heat and in a thrilling final he came through with his characteristic late rush to take bronze. Aoife (Martha) Hogan (u/19) looked very smooth as usual in her 400m and was delighted with her silver medal.

600m
Niamh Quinn and Emma Glynn finished 4th in their respective heats of the under 12 girls 600m but with qualification for the final on times, only Emma advanced to the final where she ran well but finished out of the medals.

With Cormac Dalton and Kevin Giles finishing first and second in their heat of the under 12 boys 600m, and Patrick Shaw and Shane Hughes doing likewise in their heat, thinks were set up for an intriguing final with four Mullingar boys on the line. It was a bit crowded on the opening lap but Patrick Shaw went to the front out of trouble while Cormac, Shane and Kevin struggled to settle in the crowded pack. Patrick set a good pace and at the bell looked comfortable and in control and he held the lead all the way to the finish for gold, while Cormac eventually found space on the home straight to give chase and move into 2nd followed by Shane with an amazing sprint out of nowhere to take 3rd, with Kevin also finishing well in 6th. Our stars of the future looked good as they filled the podium to receive their medals.

In the under 13 boys 600m Glen Gaffney and Oisin Quinn won their heats easily while Eoin Sheridan tried hard but didn’t advance to the final. In the final, things looked really good to the last 100m as Oisin looked clear to win and Glen close behind sure of a medal, but on the home straight Oisin had to surrender the lead and finished 2nd with Glen in 3rd. Another great result though from these two talented and consistent athletes.

Relays
It’s been a while since Mullingar made a conscious decision to field relay teams in number, but it added an additional buzz to proceedings and got many more of our athletes involved in the excitement of indoor competition.

The girls 4x200m under 15 team of Elizabeth Carr, Ciara Hewson, Lorraine Daly and Mairead Sayeh won their heat easily but in the final were very unlucky to lose out on medals in a very close finish and placed 4th.

The boys under 15 team of Aaron Glynn, Boidu Sayeh, Shane Fitzsimons and Philip Giles also qualified for the final but in another close race also finished 4th in the final, just out of the medals.

The boys 4x100m under 13 team of Patrick Shaw, Glen Gaffney, Oisin Quinn and Cormac Dalton thoroughly enjoyed their race despite not qualifying for the final, perhaps knowing that their real strengths are in the longer distances.

It was great to see a Mullingar 4x200m u/17 boys relay team where Thomas Fagan, Robert Yorke, Adam Daly and Shane Kelleher were revelations over 200m but unlucky not to advance to the final.

60m hurdles
After the excitement but ultimately disappointment of the relays, it was great to see Mullingar back in the medals again as Philip Giles powered to victory in the under 15 boys 60m hurdles and win the final gold medal of the day for Mullingar.

Field Events
It wasn’t all track races of course, as Eoin Sheridan (u/13) competed in the shot putt too and finished very well up the field, while Patrick Leydon (u/12) and Moya Leydon (u/12) competed in the long jump and as always thoroughly enjoyed jumping indoors.

By day’s end, Mullingar had secured 10 medals and 11 automatic individual qualifiers for the National Finals. That was just day one!

SUNDAY

On paper, Sunday looked like the day when Mullingar would really make its mark, and that’s how it turned out.

800m
Linda Conroy cruised through her heat of the u/14 girls 800m but in the final had to settle for silver in a surprise defeat for her. She is already plotting her revenge in the National finals! No surprise that Ciara Hewson, Lorraine Daly, Elizabeth Carr and Donna Kiernan made short work of the heats of the u/15 girls 800m heats and qualified incredibly easily for the final. Good to see newcomer Anna Ryan also compete well over 800m but didn’t advance to her final. Back to the u/15 final and understandably very short odds on a clean sweep for Mullingar as our four girls completely controlled the pace and dominated the final with Elizabeth Carr showing a real return to form and pulling away majestically to win, Lorraine Daly just having the edge on Ciara for 2nd and Donna coming in 4th just behind Ciara. You’d have to feel for Donna not to win a medal but she knows that she in an integral part of this extremely talented group of athletes and it will be an interesting National final as all four qualify.

Better known as a sprinter, Aaron Glynn showed great strength in the u/15 boys 800m and clearly the solid winter training has been good for him and he won his heat well. Shane Fitzsimons just seemed to trot around his heat to also win and the reason he took it so easy was revealed in the final where he took to the front from the gun and set a merciless pace that took him so far ahead it was just Shane against the clock. Cheered all the way around he kept up the pace and won in a new championship best performance of 2:06.5 bettering the old mark set in 2000 by an amazing 7 seconds. His winning time would have pushed the under 18 and 19 boys on the day! This is an amazing performance for a 14 year old and shows that he back to full fitness again and will give him a huge confidence boost ahead of the Schools All-Ireland cross country this Saturday. Aaron ran a very good final and finished well in 6th place.

Newcomer Aine O’Reilly (u/16) qualified well from her 800m heat and in the final ran very well but finished out of the medals though will have learned a lot from the experience. Moving down to 800m, Stephen Nea (u/16) was unlucky not to qualify for the final, just missing out on qualification. No problem for Amie Giles and Arlene Coughlan as they finished 2nd and 3rd respectively in their 800m for u/17 and add to their growing collections of Leinster medals.

Robert Yorke and Shane Kelleher came safely through their heats of the 800m for u/17 where they finished well, but out of the medals. Unfortunately, Adam Daly suffered a leg injury in his heat and didn’t advance to the final with Robert and Shane. Rachel Yorke (u/18) moved up from 300m on Saturday to 800m on Sunday and finished 5th in the final, just one place off automatic qualification for the National finals. Aoife (Martha) Hogan (u/19) though added another silver medal to her collection in the 800m in her last race as a juvenile in a Leinster indoors as she moves to junior next year.

Shot Putt
Meanwhile at the shot putt circle, Ciara Fogarty was throwing brilliantly and won the under 16 event with a good series of throws, much to her obvious delight.

Relays
We had more relay teams on the Sunday, but despite some spirited efforts, no success for Jennifer Coughlan, Claire Fagan, Laura Whitelaw and Emma Glynn (3rd in heat of 4x100m under 12), Cormac Dalton, Patrick Shaw, Shane Hughes and Kevin Giles (2nd in heat of 4x200m u/12), or Rachel Yorke, Arlene Coughlan, Amie Giles and Aine O’Reilly (3rd in heat 4x200m u/18) and didn’t advance to their finals.

The u/14 girls 4x200m team of Lauren Casey, Ann Marie Kennedy, Linda Conroy and Maeve O’Reilly did make the final but in an apparent mix up over which was the correct finish line (a very easy and understandable error in the excitement of close finish to a race), just missed out on the bronze medals to their great disappointment. Success though for Diarmaid Hyland, David Moran, Paul Ryan and Eamonn Lawlor in the u/18 boys 4x200m where they combined well and took silver.

60m
Finishing with the 60m sprints where Shane Hughes (u/12) made the final but finished out of the medals, Ann Marie Kennedy (u/14) also made the final but finished just outside the medals in 4th, Boidu Sayeh (u/14) qualified easily for his final but finished out of the medals.

Mairead Sayeh (u/15) also qualified for her final and gave us our first sprint medal with a great bronze in a very tight finish. Aaron Glynn did likewise in his 60m final and took bronze in a photo finish, while Paul Ryan (u/19) ran very well for his first time over 60m but finished out of the medals in his final.

Sprinting the short 60m indoors sounds great, but it’s far from easy because it is so terribly quick and furious and also giving it a great effort in the sprint heats but not advancing to their finals was Emma Glynn (u/12), Moya Leydon (u/12), Patrick Leydon (u/12), David Mimnagh (u/12), newcomer Alan Loughlin (u/12), Maeve O’Reilly (u/13), Eoin Sheridan (u/13), Jane Leydon (u/15), Anna Ryan (u/16) and Eamonn Lawlor (u/18).

In all, 22 medals (5 gold, 9 silver, 8 bronze) were won by Mullingar and 21 athletes qualified in 23 individual events for the National finals. These results mark this out as one of the best Leinster Indoor Championships for Mullingar in many years.

For the record, Mullingar finished 6th Club overall of 44 Clubs (Byrne Cup), a big improvement on our 12th place in 2008.