With over 200 athletes in action from Ballymena across to Westport and down to Wexford these Graded Meetings continue to provide a range of track and field competition suitable for all standards.

Phil Healy clocked 11.28s to set a new Irish100m record at a sunny Morton Stadium on Wednesday June 6th. The Bandon athlete beat the existing Irish mark  of 11.40 jointly held by Ailis McSweeney and Amy Foster.

It was a joyous Phil who told me in a trackside interview that she was absolutely delighted with her run and that the wind reading was spot on the +2.0(m/s) having previously run 11.16 with a following wind in excess of the limit.

Sarah Murray of Fingallians followed Phil Healy home in 11.73s which moved her up to joint 20th. on the All Time Irish rankings.

The Bandon woman was back on track 30 minutes later to win the 400 metres in a personal best of 52.63. An event she runs this coming week-end in  Geneva. On the evidence of this kind of running that mark will surely be improved on shortly.

Keith Pike was the fastest in the men's series of races clocking 10.98 ahead of his Clonliffe clubmate Eamonn Fahey's 11.03. Crusaders Nick Ennis was the fastest man over one lap clocking 49.77s.

There were some very competitive races in the series of 11 1500metres races.

With no pacemakers involved it was down to good old fashioned racing beginning with the women's "A"  where Meghan Ryan  tried to make stamina pay as she pushed it along but the home straight surge of St. Abbans Cherly Nolan proved best as she won in 4.33.90 ahead of Cliona Murphy and the  youthful Sorcha McAllister of Westport.

Two races were required to decide the destination of the Dublin Championship in the men's 1500. In the first race Rathfarnham's Cillian Doherty lead to the finish straight but Paul O'Donnell of DSD edged him out 3.58.49 to Cillian's 3.59.68. Clonliffe's Colm Rooney showed he had not lost too much of his speed to outrun Donore's  Ray Hynes in 4.00.38 which got him the bronze medal. 

Borrisokane's Cillian Dunne dominated the wheelchair races with Shauna Bocquet moving down in distance after her win the Women's Mini Marathon to compete in the 100m, 400m and 1500m. --

Nick Davis

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