St Peter’s ace eyes Leinster honours

RECENT Leinster Star Award winner Gabriel Bell served notice of his intention to regain that coveted accolade when emerging as one of St Peter’s AC’s top performers at the Leinster Juvenile Indoor Championships at Athlone IT on Saturday and Sunday.

Bell produced a massive leap of 6.39m in the Under-17 long jump to land himself another provincial gold medal, and he added to his already impressive medal collection the following day by winning bronze in the 200m in very close finish between the top three.

Newcomer to athletics Dearbhla Tinnelly, better known for boxing feats, won a hard-earned bronze medal in the Under-14 1,000m walk and she also did well in both the 60m hurdles and long jump.

Ronan Deery produced his best-ever shot putt performance when he threw a PB of just over nine metres to win a provincial bronze, while he finished fourth in the hurdles.

Sean Allen had a brilliant run to win his heat in the 60m hurdles and then won bronze in the final, while the previous day he just missed the top-eight cut in the long jump and qualified for the 600m final, only to get accidentally tripped and sustain an injury that forced him to retire.

There was heartbreak at these championships for Niamh Brady who produced a below-par performance in the high jump and missed out on a podium finish in the 60m final by .02 of a second after a half-hour wait while the photo finish camera was examined.

Lucy Brennan, making her indoor championship debut, performed well in both the high jump and long jump and just missed out on qualifying from her hurdles heat.

Ellie Smyth ran very bravely in her 600m heat but ran out of steam on the final lap, while she and her training partner had decent runs in their 60m sprint heats, with both qualifying for the semi-finals.

Jack McLaughlin and Padraic Tinnelly both had strong runs in the 600m and 60m sprints, while Dean Murtagh got through three of the high jump rounds and also did well in the shot putt.

Rory McLoughlin won his heat of the Under-14 800m but paid the price for a bad start in the final, while he achieved a new PB of 1.30m in the high jump and his sister Julie set a new high jump PB. Lucy Smith had a good run over the hurdles and very narrowly missed out on a place in the final.

On Friday at the same venue, Mark Rogers and Conor Durnin both won bronze at the National Universities Championships in the combined events and triple jump respectively.