Deary stars in hurdles

ST PETER’S AC’s three competing athletes in Saturday’s National Indoor Championships returned home without medals but will no doubt benefit from the experience of running at this level.

The championships in Athlone brought down the curtain on the indoor season and all three of the St Peter’s club members had qualified in the Under-13 60m hurdles on merit through the Leinster Championships.

The best performance of the trio came from Ronan Deary who ran superbly to finish third in his heat and qualify as one of the two quickest runners-up.

In the final Ronan ran really well again among a top-class field but unfortunately he finished outside the medals despite achieving a new personal best time of 10.19sec.

Sean Allen had the unfortunate experience of breaking early from the blocks in his heat, and although at Under-13 level you are only cautioned he was rattled and didn’t perform to his ability after the restart.

Niamh Brady, who is also a brilliant hurdler didn’t get her usual fast start and was slow out of the blocks.

This fine young athlete has great courage and she recovered well, but over a distance of 60m there isn’t much room at this level for error and she just missed out on a place in the final. •St Peter’s AC would also like to extend its sympathies to neighbouring club North East Runners on the untimely death of fellow athlete Andy Califf. RIP.