SOMBA BACK IN WINNING FORM
Peter Somba, now with Ratoath AC, was the winner of the Terenure 5-Mile held in sunny conditions in south Dublin on Sunday (May 12). Somba finished in 24 mins 40 secs. Of the Dublin athletes, James Hyland (Raheny Shamrock) finished third in 24.53, while sixth and first M40 in 26:40 was comeback kid Tomás Fitzpatrick (Tallaght AC) in his first major race for some time. Dublin club athletes dominated the women’s race with Grace Lynch (DSD), 11th overall and first woman in 27:16, Lauren Tinkler (DCH ) second in 27:58 and Lisa Madden (Sportsworld) third in 28:12. Category winners included Romaine King (DSD AC) W40, Mary Walsh (Raheny Shamrock) W50, AidanMurphy ( DSD) M45, Ruben Bartelink (DSD ) M50, Des Kennedy (Raheny Shamrock M55, and Sean Ryan (Civil Service Harriers) M60. Dundrum South Dublin proved best of the senior men’s teams ahead of Sportsworld and Rathfarnham WSAF. In the women’s competition Sportsworld got the better of DSD with Raheny Shamrock third. In the over 40 team category, Rathfarnham WSAF beat Blackrock AC and DSD, while Raheny Shamrock proved best of the women ahead of Crusaders AC and Clonliffe Harriers. More pictures from the Terenure 5 are at https://www.flickr.com/photos/
Robert Corbally of host club Dundrum South Dublin made it a home win at the Sandyford 5km, held in Sanford Business Park on Thursday (May 9) leading home 520 finishers.. Corbally finished in 16 mins 6 secs. Ado Murphy was second in 16:13 and David Power third in 16:43. First junior was Conn McCluskey, also of DSD, in 17:30. Malika Hammani (Crusaders AC) in 19:41 proved fastest of the women. Aoife Quigley (Crusaders AC) was second in 19:47 and Deirdre O’Connell (Sportsworld AC) third in 20:11.
TRACK & FIELD
Santry was the venue for the second Dublin Graded Track and Field meet of 2024 and in the women’s 1500m, Aine Burke ( St Coca’s AC) proved fastest with a time of 4:42.69, with Rachel Hosey (Emerald AC) running 4:43.55 and Maria McCambridge (DSD AC, W45) 4:45.61. Jack Miskella (Craughwell AC) won the men’s A 1500m in 3:57.35 with Ed Tottenham (Clonliffe Harriers) second in 3:58.33 and Paul Hartnett (East Cork) third in 3:58.43. Winning the men’s 5000m in 15:08.23 was David Troy (Lucan Harriers). Over 200m, Paralympian Orla Comerford (Raheny Shamrock AC) ran 25.17, the fastest women’s time of the night. Darragh Murphy (UCD AC) proved fastest of the men with a time of 21.48 secs. Winning the women’s discus with a throw of 42.16m was Ciara Sheehy (Emerald AC).
At masters’ level, two world women’s 4 x 800m relay records were broken. Denis Toner (Clones AC), Maria Dunne (St LOT AC), Zoe Quinn (Raheny Shamrock ) and Kelly Neely (City of Lisburn AC) ran 9 mins 40.76 secs to smash the existing W45 record of 9.43.13 set last year. At W65 level, a time of 12 mins 59.94 secs was run by Mary Browne (Mayo AC), Noreen Bonner (Finn Valley AC), Brigid McCabe (Mullingar Harriers) and Pauline Moran (Mayo AC) obliterated the existing record of 14:49.29 set by USA in July 2022.
At the Irish Milers Club Belfast international on Saturday (May 11) , the Irish Irish performance of the day came from Sophie Becker (Raheny Shamrock AC) who took almost a second off her previous best when winning the women’s 400m in 51.13; her previous best was 51.83. The time was inside the European Championships qualification mark and not far off the Olympic standard of 50.95. In the men’s 400m, Jack Raftery (Donore Harriers) finished second in 46.39 and many times previous Irish champion Brian Gregan (Clonliffe Harriers) fifth in 47.57. In the B race, Marcus Lawler (Clonliffe Harriers), a 100m and 200m specialist in his day, clocked 47.19 for second place. On a day of closely fought races, the men’s international 1500m was probably the pick of them, with four men finishing in under 3 mins 43 secs and Phillip Marron (DCH AC) 11th In 3:45.83 Ellie Hartnett (UCD AC) was second in the women’s 1500m with a time of 4:21.25, followed by Niamh Kearney (Raheny Shamrock AC) third in 4:23.41 and Carla Sweeney (Rathfarnham WSAF AC) fifth in 4:25.65. In the men’s international 800m race, Callum Dodds (Enfield and Haringey) was the winner in 1:55.79, followed by three other visitors. Best of the Irish was Cillian Kirwan (Raheny Shamrock AC) fifth in 1:45.75, followed by Harry Purcell (Trim AC) sixth in 1:47.18. Dara Donoghue (Lucan Harriers) finished second in the men’s A race in 1:48.97. In the sprints, Mark Smyth (Raheny Shamrock AC) won the men’s 200m in 21.17. Over 100m, Israel Olatunde (Tallaght AC) clocked 10.56 secs for victory with Bori Akinola (UCD AC) second in 10.67. Mollie O’Reilly (DSD AC) proved fastest of the women in 11.80 secs.
At the Diamond League in Doha on Friday evening Sarah Healy (Blackrock AC) finished tenth in the women’s 1500m with a time of 4:05.72.
Cathal Doyle (Clonliffe Harriers) ran a personal best 3:36.02 when when winning his 1500m race at the LangerLauftnacht in Karlsruhe, Germany on Saturday (May 11), His time was the third fastest on the night.
In Williamstown, Massachusetts, also on Saturday, Craig Duffy Clonliffe Harriers) ran a personal best 10.74 for 100m. Two Dublin Club athletes were also in action in Florida on Saturday, both of them running personal best times. In Gainesville at the SEC, Louis O’Loughlin (Donore Harriers) ran a 1:48.00 for 800m, while in Clermont, Kate Doherty (DSD AC) improved her best in the 100m hurdles to 13:30.
On Thusday (May 9) Niamh Fogarty (Raheny Shamrock AC) threw a personal best 56.49m in the discus when competing in Denmark. Fogarty is now just over a metre shy of Patricia Walsh’s Irish record of 57.60 set at Santry in July, 1984.
MOUNTAIN/TRAIL
At the European Masters Off-Road Running Championships, held at Machico, Madeira, Portugal over the weekend, Ian Conroy (Raheny Shamrock AC) was third M40 in the vertical run (5km, 1000m climb) with a time of 42.48. Daniel O’Brien (Lusk AC) clocked a time of 35 mins 59 to win the opening round of the IMRA trail league on the undulating ground of Argillan House in north Co Dublin on Wednesday (May 8). Sinead Farrell (Lambay Sports Academy) made it a north Dublin club double when finishing first woman in 42:00.
