University Indoor gold for Kerry 1,500m walker Emma Prendiville

THE Irish University Indoor Track and Field Championships took place at the Athlone Institute of Technology last Friday. In the 1,500m race walk there was gold for Emma Prendiville from Farranfore Maine Valley and competing for RCSI. Emma clinched the title by the smallest of margins with her winning time of 6:31.70 only a 10th of a second ahead of second place.

There was silver for Grace Lynch (Iveragh and UL) in the women’s 3,000m. Dearbhail Foley (Tralee Harriers and AIT) was 4th in the pole vault. Solange Diogo, technically from Galway but a Kerry development squad regular, took silver in the triple jump, competing for IT Tralee. Niamh de Hora (Farranfore Maine Valley and UL) competed in the 1,500m.

For the boys PJ Galvin of An Ríocht was competing for UL in the pentathlon where he finished in second place. He also won bronze in the high jump.

Eoin O’Carroll (Tralee Harriers and UL) was 3rd in the long jump.

Rossa Foley (Farranfore Maine Valley and IT Tralee) competed in the weight for distance.

The club cross-country season came to an end on Sunday with the Irish Life Health Masters and Juvenile B Cross-Country Championships which was held at Waterford IT.

There were some great results from the few juvenile athletes that made the journey. Kathryn Ryan (Killarney Valley) finished in 3rd place overall in the U-11 girl’s race with her twin sister Hannah not far behind her in 7th position. Following in her mother’s footsteps Shauna McCarthy (Farranfore Maine Valley) crossed the line in 4th place in the U-13 girls competition. Emily Pierce (Lios Tuathail) was 14th in the U-17 girls event. In the U-11 boys race Adam Quigley (Iveragh) picked up an individual medal when he finished in 12th place.

Maria McCarthy (Farranfore Maine Valley) was the county’s top finisher in the Master Women’s race, crossing the line in 5th place overall and taking third place in the O-40 age category. There was gold for Niamh O’Sullivan (An Riocht) in the O-50 category and team silver O-50 for Niamh, Sharon Cahill, Liz Heaslip and Helena Shanahan. Niamh, Sharon and Liz were joined by Caroline Murphy from Gneeveguilla to collect bronze county medals for Kerry.

Tim O’Connor (An Riocht) ran a great race to finished 2nd overall and win gold in the O-40 division. The An Riocht men’s team finished 7th overall with Tim joined by Sean O’Sullivan, Darren Burke and Tommy O’Brien.