Kaugars is the king of Leinster
DUNLEER AC’S Karlis Kaugars enjoyed a dream weekend at the Leinster Indoor Championships when returning from Athlone with two gold medals and a bronze.
Kaugars enjoyed a good start to the competition on Saturday when finishing third in the long jump with a 5.12m jump. Then on day two he went on to win gold in the high jump with a 1.70m PB and also won the shot putt with a new championship best of 15.97m.
Kaugars will be looking forward to the National Championships in March and will be training hard with his coach Santis.
Among the other Dunleer athletes to do extremely well was Tadg Reilly who finished fourth in the U-16 shot putt with 9.10m and thus qualified for the All-Ireland Championships.
There was a fourth place also for Finn Reilly who clocked 55.04 in the Under-19 400m, while Ciara Reilly was second in her heat of the 400m Under-18 in 63.32 and there was a super-fast U-13 60m dash from Aibhe Reilly who clocked 9.57sec.
In the 600m races Aibhe Reilly, Sam O’Neill and Jack Greene all performed very well, while in the 800m Matthew Fitzpatrick, Oisín Cheshire and Rebecca Baldwin achieved great times, with Rebecca progressing to the final at Under-14 and Conor finishing fourth in his final after taking a bit of a tumble. Sam O’Neill also made the final of the U-13 600m with a brilliant run in the heats and Rebecca Baldwin won bronze in the Under-14 800m.
All in all it was a fantastic weekend for Dunleer AC who are busy preparing for the Kingspan International Rás na hÉireann next Sunday at Oldbridge, Drogheda.
This year, the 50th Anniversary of Ras na hEireann and 45 years since the first NACAI International Sport & Cultural Week will be celebrated with the Armagh International Road Race this Thursday as well as the main event on Sunday.
In addition, there will be a tree-planting ceremony in Dunleer on Saturday at 3pm when a tree will be planted and a plaque unveiled to honour the memory of Larry Mc Guill, with a historical Rás photographic exhibition afterwards.
On Sunday the Rás events begin at noon with juvenile races, and continue with junior, senior and masters events in the afternoon, with a special 3km fun run at 2.30.
All previous senior Rás winners are being invited to the event to receive a special Rás medal as a memento.
As well as main sponsors Kingspan, the Ras is being supported by many local sponsors and friends also, and of course Dolores McGovern and her staff at the OPW have given kind permission for use of the Battle of the Boyne site in Oldbridge.