A dazzling day of success and memories for our youngest juveniles at day 1 the National Juvenile Championships in Tullamore!
MSB dazzled with some of our youngest juveniles entering the national championships for the first time. Our kids gave it their all and set an extraordinary example of sporting spirit, participation and brilliant performance standards coming away with lots of personal best performances and no less than 5 National medals (2 national golds, 2 national silver and 1 national bronze) for the club across sprints, middle distance, turbo javelin and high jump! What an outstanding achievement!
Starting with our youngest, our U9 juveniles proudly made their national debut taking to the field first with team pairs Daniel Howlin and Fionn Kelly and Holly Caffrey and Lara O’Sullivan lining up for the Turbo Javelin.
Great performances all round from our youngest athletes with Holly and Lara throwing a combined distance of 19.73m and claiming a bronze medal for their efforts! Our juveniles have been having great success in turbo javelin over the last few years and this has definitely rubbed off on our younger athletes, so it was great to see the girls bring home a first turbo javelin medal at national level for the club. Well done!
Our U9’s were closely followed by our U10 girls. We had two teams lining up today for Turbo Javelin, Saoirse Kelly and Robyn Cullen and Elsie O’Beirne and Isla Gorman. They did an amazing job representing their club and turbo javelin has a bright future at MSB with the enthusiasm shown by these young athletes.
First on the track for the u10 girls saw Zoë McConville & Priya Muldowney both running great times in their 60m heats. Priya came 3rd in her heat and Zoë 2nd, with their combined times putting them 8th overall. Super running girls! Darragh Coghlan ran a great time in the first heat of the boys 60m, with his partner Aidan Ryan strongly crossing the line in 4th place. Well done boys!
Daniel Howlin & Fionn Kelly were next on the track for the u9s. Both boys ran super 300m races in 2 very competitive heats. Good on you both!
Zoë & Bella both ran impressive times in the girls 500m. Zoë came 6th in a very fast heat with a time of 1:42, while Bella Mujica stepped it up a gear in heat 2, storming across the line in 1st place with a super time of 1:41:54. The girls came home with silver medals for their combined efforts!
Towards the end of a very long day the u10 relay teams put in amazing performances on the track. The girls team, made up of Beth O’Callaghan, Priya Muldowney, Bella Mujica & Zoë McConville ran their socks off and finished 4th in their heat with a super time of 1:05:70. The u10 boys; Darragh Coghlan, Rhys Murphy, Rían McCarthy & Aidan Ryan put in an unbelievable performance, finishing 4th in their heat with a fantastic time of 1:03:88, knocking an incredible 4 seconds off their Dublin championship time!!
The teams have put in a lot of extra time & effort recently and it was great to see seamless baton passes from all the children…they should be very proud of themselves!
Our U11s had two qualifying teams for the gruelling 600m, Aoibheann & Charlotte & James & Cian and one team for Turbo, James & Odhran.
The boys relay team with Odhran, Ruairi, James & Craig was the best placing MSB relay team over the day! Well done, a terrific display!
The U11 group had a fantastic day and this marked their last day competing as teams.
Next year they move on to individual events.
The U12 and U13 juveniles were no less impressive in their individual events and relays.
The U12s, competing for the first time as individuals, once again showed how the club has progressed in field events with 3 girls qualifying for the turbo javelin. Well done to Aishling O’Brien who took 7th place with throw of 18.60m and followed closely behind by team mates Ciara Williams in 8th place with 18.46m and Ruby Finnegan in 11th place with 17.10m. Well done girls!
Ciara went on to enter a second throwing event and threw her 2kg Shot Put out to 6.28m for 12th place – Well done Ciara!
There was lots of activity with the U12 boys also. Congratulations to Tadgh Doran who competed in the High Jump for the first time with a jump of 1.15m and also to Senan Kelly and Jacob Shiels who had great performances in their U12B 600m.
The U12 boys sprints brought great excitement with club mates Favour Orji and Chisom Nwaejim competing in the heats with strong running from both in tough windy conditions. The U12 performance of the day had to go to Chisom Nwaejim who made the final and won an incredible gold and became the U12 60m national champion in a fantastic time of 8.55s against a tough -1.3 m/s head wind!
Congratulations Chisom! This time is also a new MSB club record for U12 boys outdoor 60m!
Our U12s also had great performances in the relays with Favour Orji, Jacob Shiels, Senan Kelly and Tadgh Doran running for the boys and Ruby Finnegan, Ciara Williams, Rebecca Farrell and Patrice O’Dwyer running for the girls. Both teams gave it socks!
Moving on to our U13 Juveniles the Gorman twin sisters had an especially busy day qualifying and competing in several events with very little recovery time. Both Cara and Laoise competed alongside their club mates Ciara O’Reilly and Chloe Fennessey in the high jump where the excellent coaching from Chloe’s mum Rochelle reaped it’s rewards. All four girls had a great day with Laoise, Ciara and Chloe all clearing 1.30m! The performance best went to Cara who had an incredible jump of 1.48m to claim and magnificent national silver medal!! Well done Cara and coach Rochelle!
Staying with field events Olivia Dixon and Ciara O’Reilly had powerful throws in their javelin reaching 18.16m and 15.42m respectively. Olivia stayed with throwing events and joined Chloe Fennessey for Shot Put where both girls did some excellent throwing. Olivia threw the 2kg shot put out 7.24m and Chloe wasn’t far behind with a super throw of 6.44m. Well done girls!
Then it was over to Long Jump for Laoise where the wind was tough to deal and she was under pressure to make it over to her relay team-mates where her relay race was starting at the same time. It can be very challenging to juggle more than one event at the nationals and Laoise did very well to squeeze in a jump of 3.93m before joining her relay team.
Cara unfortunately had to pull out of her 600m due to a calf strain but managed to regain her strength for the relays where she joined her team Aoife Roche, Emily Ryan and sister Laoise for a brilliant team run taking 9th place with 56.71s. Well done girls!
Over to the boys field events and Harry Atkinson threw his 2kg shot put out to 9.95m to take 7th place and then went over to the Long Jump to take another 7th place with a leap of 4.42m. Well done Harry. Conor Mullins was also in action for the U13B high jump where he jumped 1.30m, shy of his 1.45m achieved at the Dublin Leagues which is a club record for U13boys!
Finally the boys U13 80 sprint heats made for a very exciting final when club mates Aidan Makembe and Harry Atkinson both qualified! Both boys ran superbly under tough conditions in to -2.2 m/s headwind with Aidan running 11.38s and Harry running 10.91s to become the U13 boys national champion with a national gold medal. This is Harry’s second sprint national gold medal this year! Well done.
Well done to all juveniles who qualified, competed in these events and got their all important nationals hoody!. The national championships are the highest juvenile club competitions in the country and it is an extraordinary achievement and experience to make it to the starting line of any of these track or field events. Well done to all juveniles, parents and coaches!
Thanks to coaches Hannah McConville and Nuala O’Dwyer for the updates and photos.
Report: Ruth Moloney