Litchfie ld m ake s his Markfor St Pe te r’s

MARK Litchfield emerged as the star performer for St Peter’s AC in Saturday’s Leinster Juvenile Championships.

All of the athletes represented the club with pride, but Mark in particular showed everyone that hard work always pays off when he ran brilliantly to finish third in the Under-13 Boys 600m with a fantastic time of 1m 41sec -a new PB.

Mark also competed in the Under-13 80m sprint and made it through to the semi-finals, while his day concluded by winning another bronze medal - this time in the red singlet of Louth in the 4x100 Under-13 inter-county relay.

Hannah and Emily O’Reilly, who were competing for the first time outside the county, ran fantastically well in the Under-9 300m pairs and when their respective times were added the girls were awarded silver medals for second place.

Both Ronan Deery and Ellie Smyth had really good performances in the Under-13 shot putt and Under-12 high jump respectively. Ronan once again threw more than nine metres and Ellie jumped to a new PB of 1.25m. Both have qualified along with the club’s three medallists for the National Track & Field championships next month.

The club also had good performances from Orla McLoughlin and her partner Mia Finnegan in the Under-10 60m and long jump. Isabeal Fitzpatrick ran well in her sprint and Lucy Brennan had a strong high jump.

Conor Litchfield and Padraic Tinnelly both had decent runs in the Boys Under-12 600m and 60m sprint and both just narrowly missed out on final places.

Niamh Brady and Judith Bell both had decent performances in the Under-13 high jump in difficult conditions, while Lucy Smyth and Julie McLoughlin ran strongly in the Under-13 80m and Julie later helped the Louth Under-13 4x100m team to win silver in the inter-county relay.

Dean Murtagh had good performances in the high jump and shot putt, while Sean Allen had the misfortune of being involved in a tangle early on in his 600m run where he sustained a nasty fall and was unable to continue.

Earlier in the week the club had two teams travel to Tullamore on the bank holiday Monday. The Under-13 boys - Sean Allen, Ronan Deery, Dean Murtagh and Mark Litchfield - did well despite finishing outside the medals.

However, the Under-13 girls gave a gutsy display to win bronze thanks to the efforts of Julie McLoughlin, Judith Bell, Lucy Smyth and Ellie Smyth.

Elsewhere, Tom McGrane traveled to the Mary Peters track in Belfast to compete in the Ulster Senior Championships on Saturday. Tom had decent performances in both the senior shot putt and discus to finish fourth and fifth respectively.