Irish Life Health National Junior & U/23 Indoor Championships

Life is not easy for any of us but what of that. We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted at something and that this thing must be attained.
Those borrowed words from Marie Curie are epic in their eloquence and simplicity. Words that can only be voiced by someone who has garnered their life's accomplishments by hard work, perseverance and self believe.
Looking at our young athletes brilliant performances today in Athlone a lot of people don't realise the years of hard work and perseverance that goes into being an overnight success.
Sean Carolan got our medal haul off to an early start with gold in the Shot Putt. A throw of 14.64m is an early season best. Seán was also 2nd in the Weight for distance event.
Joe McEvoy had a busy day and won the 60m Hurdles in 8.2s a new PB.
Joe also cleared 6.70 for 2nd in the Long jump and 1.90m for the bronze in the High jump.
Darragh Miniter was also in fine form with two bronze medals. He cleared 6.55 in the long jump and had a new PB of 8.43s in the 60m Hurdles behind clubmate Joe McEvoy.
Our two young pole vaulters performed very well with Jodie McGrath 4th and Ben Connolly 5th in their respective junior competitions.
Both of our endurance women were in flying form with Pb's the order of the day. Sarah Lane overcame a recent injury and a slight lack of confidence in her miling ability to obliterate her previous best time with 16sec off her PB to earn the silver medal in the U20 1500m in 4.40.39 sec.
Her 16yr old teammate and training partner Ailbhe O'Neill also got in on the PB act knocking two seconds off her 800m time when finishing 3rd in the U20 800m.
So with less than a month into the new season and all our athletes literally hitting the ground running it threatens to be quiet a season. So get on board and strap in tight as we continue our season tomorrow in Athlone again for the final day of the National senior league. We're in 3rd position going into this and it would be nice to retain a podium position with our very young team but we're led by two very experienced performers in Robbie Bennett running the 200m and international Paul White running the 400m.