We had a fabulous time down on the track last Friday evening as, thanks to Leia McKeever’s grandad  Johnny Fox,  we had an opportunity to hold the Olympic Torch and get photographs taken with it. Despite short notice, there was a great turnout and tremendous excitement. We owe a huge ‘Thank You’ to Mr. Fox, who gave up a lot of time in order to allow everyone get the pictures they wanted.
Hard to follow this, but the achievements last weekend gave us lots to cheer about once again. Two long days of athletics in Tullamore brought outstanding performances, thrills, spills and disappointments too! Huge congratulations to all our athletes and very well done to all the medal winners!
U18 Boys Eoin Taggart Gold in 3K, Jamie Cullen Silver 1500m & Bronze 800m, Amy Howard Gold 1500m & Bronze 3k, Aoife Conroy Bronze 400m & 400mH, Aisling McCabe Silver 2K Steeplechase, Lynda Earls Silver 100mH
U17 Stephen Rice Gold Javelin ( new record) Aisling Moore Bronze 300mH & 4th 400m
U16 Lorcan Lalor Gold 100mH & 250mH
U15 Conor Dempsey Gold 100m & long jump, Silver 80mH, Jamie Fallon Bronze LJ, Scott Howard Bronze 800m, 4th 1500m, Ara Freeman Gold 100m
U14 Sinead O'Neill Bronze 800m & 1500m, Alison Dawson Whelan Silver 200m & 4th LJ, Rebecca Murphy Bronze HJ
U13 Alannah Ryan Gold 100m
All qualify for All Ireland’s this month, as does U12 Sophie Nicholson, Silver HJ from her Leinster’s in Navan
Inter county relays U13 girls Bronze, Sophie Nicholson, Rachel Diggin, Niamh Conroy, Alannah Ryan
U19 girls silver Zoe Lematy, Amy Howard, Aoife Conroy, Lynda Earls
Many more qualifiers for finals and top class performances also. Full results will be found on www.athleticsleinster.org

All qualifiers, including relays inter-club relays, were text with instructions to confirm their intention to compete at Nationals and to date only about half have done so. Please let us know immediately if you are going or not.

Congratulations to everyone who competed in the Bray Runners Invitational event and help us to once again win not only the Overall Cup, but also the Medley Relay Shield…….Well done everyone!

There is a National Developmental Event on Sat/Sun 4/5th Aug for athletes U12/13/14/15/16 who have not qualified for the National Finals. Limited events, 80/100m, 600/800m, HJ, LJ, SP with athletes able to compete in 2 events. This is always a good event and could be a great way to finish up your T&F season for 2012. The Combined events U14 up will also be held on that weekend. Anyone interested in taking part in either of these should let Theresa know asap.

We will take a well earned break after all of these events and recommend that all athletes take a week to 10 days rest from training. You should then start doing short runs every second day, slowly building up until we return on the 1st Tues. in Sept. This way you will be ready for the work ahead and won’t struggle in the first couple of weeks back!
We will be revising the members list again over the summer and removing names of athletes who haven’t attended for a month or more. If there was a good reason why you haven’t been attending and you haven’t already contacted us, please do so, as only those on the attendance sheets will be allowed on to the track in Sept. We have an on-going problem with athletes who disappear for long periods and then return, disappear again and return again whenever it suits them. This cannot continue as it causes problems with numbers at training and takes up places that others could use. The club rule is, “if we don’t see you for 3 weeks, or get a message that you are ill or injured, we assume you have left the club”  From Sept. athletes who are removed from the list for non attendance will have to go back on the waiting list until a place becomes available again!

A huge ‘Thank You to all our coaches for all their hard work during the year and for all the time they give and effort they put in to help make us the top club in the County and one of the top clubs in Leinster!