Weekly Round Up - 17th February 2025

Armagh 5k International Road Race
Once again, the Armagh Road Races did not disappoint, cold conditions did not prevent record breaking performances in the men’s 5k. The first three athletes all went under the course record with the 3rd place athlete sixteen-year-old Sebastian Larstad running an incredible 13.36 which was a world best. The overall win was taken by Andrew Colley of the USA whose 13.33 took three seconds off the previous record.
Jack O’Farrell was the first local athlete home in 31st place with a pb 14.05. Andrew Milligan was our next athlete home in 35th place in a time of 14.07. The Northern Ireland team finished on the podium in the international team race finishing 3rd.
In the women’s 3k race there was another close finish with Verity Ockenden from England winning in 9.05 from India Weir second in 9.07.
First local athlete home was Roisin Flanagan (Finn Valley) who finished 8th in 9.19. Hannah Gilliland (Annadale Striders) was 12th in a pb of 9.25.
The open 3k was the last event of the evening and produced another close finish with Sweden’s Eric Nederheim winning in 8.28 from Frank Buchanan (St Michaels). Lagan Valley’s U20 men won the team race for the second year running.

Indoor Records Broken at Home and Abroad
On Friday night in Boston there were several local athletes competing in the David Hemery Valentine meeting. The highlight being James Gormley (Carmen) who ran a massive pb of 7.40.72 in the men’s 3000m which was also a new NI indoor record. In the 5000m there were indoor pb’s for Callum Morgan (Candour) 13.54.35, Conall McClean (Candour) 13.59.95 and Tony McCambridge (Candour) 14.15.82. The women’s program was held on Saturday and Emmy Thornton (Willowfield) ran a season’s best in the 800m of 2.18.15.
Lauren Roy (City of Lisburn) returned to Albuquerque, New Mexico almost exactly two years on from setting her NI Indoor 200m record and did not disappoint, going sub 24 seconds for the first time indoors and improving the record further to a time of 23.92.
Closer to home there was a good turnout for the storm postponed UUJ Sprints & Hurdles meeting. The highlight of the meeting was an equal NI and Irish U18 60m Hurdles record by North Down AC’s Cameron McCracken. Cameron equalled Garbhan McKenna’s 2013 mark of 8.02 which was also set at Jordanstown before going on to set a new 60m PB of 7.05 for the fastest time of the day.