Selections for Commonwealth Youth Games Announced

Many congratulations to the athletes who have gained selection to the team that will represent Northern Ireland at the 2017 Commonwealth Youth Games.

Athletics have been granted four places for this competition that takes place in Nassau, The Bahamas between the 19^th – 23^rd July 2017.

The quartet will be made up of Sommer Lecky (Finn Valley / Niall Wilkinson) in the High Jump, Anna McAuley (City of Lisburn / Maureen McCauley)  in the 100m Hurdles, Davicia Patterson (Beechmount / Paul Magee)  in the 400m and Aaron Sexton (North Down / Roger Sexton) in the 100m and 200m.

All four selected athletes competed in the open meeting at the Mary Peters Track on Saturday and demonstrated their potential to deliver first-rate results in July. Sommer Lecky, who set a new personal best as she cleared 1.82m said, “I am thrilled and delighted with the news that I have been selected to compete for Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Youth Games. My outdoor season has got off to a good start, jumping a new personal best of 1.82m, on Saturday. I was part of the Northern Ireland team which travelled to Portugal at Easter for a warm weather training camp. This has really helped with my early season form and in preparing me for competing in the heat of the Bahamas in July.”

Laura Kerr, Athletics NI Coach Development and Physical Preparation Lead will accompany the team as Head Coach. She said, “This competition provides a valuable preparation opportunity for young athletes to gain experience of competing on the international stage. There is also an opportunity for them to learn important performance habits such as preparation for long haul travel, dealing with hot climates and performance nutrition. We hope that these skills will help them in Nassau and throughout the rest of their career. Each of these athletes set this competition as a target for 2017 and I am very much looking forward to working with them to produce the best results possible.”

Congratulations to all of the athletes and their personal coaches.