Despite the bitterly cold east wind blowing across the Irishtown Stadium in Ringsend, Dublin on Friday 18th April, Brendan Marshall kicked off his 2008 outdoor season with an excellent performance at the Irish Universities Track and Field Championships. Competing in the long jump for Dublin City University, where he is undertaking a PhD in sports science, Brendan put a very consistent series of jumps together and was more than satisfied with his silver medal performance. The cold and blustery wind did the long jumpers no favours, but being the seasoned campaigner that he is, Brendan coped extremely well with the difficult conditions.

Kevin Duggan was also in action, for NUI Galway. Having missed the entire indoor season through injury, this was his first competitive outing since last summer. Kevin had a very busy week-end, with the heats of the 100m and 200m on Friday afternoon, and the finals on Saturday as well as the 4x100m and 4x400m relays, giving him four competitive races in the space of a few hours on Saturday to contend with. Certainly a great way to blow any cobwebs away and a good early season test to gauge how his training is coming along. Kevin ran well in the trying conditions where he finished out of the medals, but it’s very early in the season and once he completes his final examinations in a few weeks time, he’ll be able to give his full attention to training and competition.