All Ireland Bronze for Thomas

The first stage of the All Ireland Juvenile Track and Field championships were held in Tullamore last Saturday. With the club being represented in 10 events, across two days – the first stage saw four of our athletes compete in three different events.
The boys u/16 High Jump saw the first of our athletes get into action. Thomas Sheridan having secured the bronze medal from the Indoor Championships last March came into the competition as one of the athletes, favourite to take a medal. All we can ask on any given day of competition is that an athlete do their best. He did not disappoint when he secured the Bronze Medal with a personal best of 1.75m. This is also Thomas’s first ever All Ireland Track and Field medal. A hearty congratulations to him on all counts. Thomas is also a budding Pole Vaulter – so perhaps we will see him do the double next year.
In the girls u/12 High Jump, Saoirse Allen also leaped to a personal best when she jumped 1.30m to finish 4th. This is a great achievement for an athlete who only took up the High Jump 2 months ago. Saoirse is one of the club’s most versatile athletes having also secured an All-Ireland individual medal at Cross Country last season, in addition to having qualified for the 60m in the next stage of the All- Ireland’s in a week’s time.
It seemed to have been a day of 4th for the club when Mark Wallis came 4th in the boys u/12 shot putt. One must put his 4th place in perspective when Mark (who is current Leinster Champion and who regularly throws over 9m) broke his toe last week and came down with a virus this week. Throwing with considerable pain from a broken bone is no joke and we have to admire Mark for taking part and working through the pain barrier with no complaining. There is a bright future ahead for this young man and we look forward to seeing is progress next year. In the same event Daniel Griffin finished 9th place, a great achievement in his first All-Ireland competition. There is nothing wrong with being the 9th best in Ireland for your age group. So again we look forward to seeing Daniel progress over the next year.
Next week see’s the club being represented across a spectrum of event’s – race walking, middle distance running, pole vault, javelin and sprints. It has been many years since the club has had such versatility of representation at the national championships. We look forward to and encourage all our athletes to try their hand at all events. You never know – that event that you never thought you could do – could see you representing Ireland yet.
Training
All our athletes (other than those currently training for an All-Ireland event) are now on a well-earned break. So enjoy the month off and we will see you again on Aug 5th. For updates you can like St Senans AC on Facebook or regularly check out our website www.stsenansac.com