ATHLETICS | New PB for Litchfield at the Leinster Juvenile Championships

The Leinster Juvenile Championships commenced on Saturday in Tullamore and all of the athletes who made the trip represented St Peter’s AC with pride.

Mark Litchfield showed everyone that hard work always pays off by running brilliantly to finish third in the U13 boys 600m race in a fantastic time of 1 minute 41 seconds which is a new PB.

Mark also competed in the U13 80m sprint and made it through to the semi-final before he concluded his day by winning another bronze medal, this time wearing the red singlet of Louth in the U13 4x100m inter county relay.

Despite competing outside of Co Louth for the first time, Hannah and Emily O’Reilly ran fantastically well in the U9 300m pairs.

When their respective times were added, the girls finished in second place and collected their well deserved silver medals.

Both Ronan Deery and Ellie Smyth put in some really good performances in the U13 shot putt and U12 high jump respectively.

Ronan once again threw over 9m and Ellie jumped to a new PB of 1.25m. Both of these youngsters have qualified — along with the club’s three medalists — for the National Track and Field Championships which take place next month.

The club also had good performances from Orla McLoughlin and her partner Mia Finnegan in the U10 60m sprint and long jump.

Isabeal Fitzpatrick ran well in her sprint and Lucy Brennan had a strong performance in the high jump. Conor Litchfield and Padraic Tinnelly both enjoyed decent runs in the boys U12 600m and the 60m sprint with both narrowly missing out on a place in the final.

Niamh Brady and Judith Bell both had decent performances in the U13 high jump in difficult conditions.

Lucy Smyth and Julie McLoughlin ran strongly in the U13 80m sprint and Julie later helped the Louth U13 4X100m team to win silver at the inter county relay race.

Dean Murtagh had some good performances in the high jump and shot putt while Sean Allen had the misfortune of being involved in a tangle early on in his 600m run were he sustained a nasty fall and was unable to continue.

Leinster Team Event

Earlier in the week, two of the club’s teams travelled to Tullamore on the Bank Holiday Monday where the U13 boys and girls went into battle in the Leinster Team Event.

The boys battled well with Sean Allen, Ronan Deery, Dean Murtagh and Mark Litchfield finishing outside the medals but the girls gave a great gutsy display to win bronze medals with Julie McLoughlin, Judith Bell, Lucy Smyth and Ellie Smyth all performing brilliantly.

Ulster Senior Championships

Elsewhere, Tom McGrane traveled to the Mary Peters Track in Belfast to compete in the Ulster Senior Championships on Saturday.

Tom put in two decent performances in the senior shot putt and discus. His putt of 8.93m secured a fourth place finish while he threw 20.99m in the discus to finish fifth.