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Adams Storms to 60m Title in Memorable Irish Indoor Championships

03 March 2020

Adams Storms to 60m Title in Memorable Irish Indoor Championships

Ballymena & Antrim’s Dean Adams provided the highlight of the Irish Indoor Championships on day 2 as he dominated a quality field of sprinters to take his second 60m title some 9 years after his 2011 victory in the Odyssey Arena Belfast.

Undefeated in 2020, the Alan Kennedy coached athlete held his nerve in an emotionally charged National Indoor Arena when athletes, coaches and officials remembered the life of former champion Craig Lynch of Shercock AC who tragically passed away in September 2019. Following the race Dean became the first recipient of the Craig Lynch Cup in honour of his former competitor. His winning time of 6.74 is his 8th 60m of the season inside his pre 2020 PB topping off a remarkable indoor season.

In the shot the John Kelly Snr coached Finn Valley pair of John and James Kelly finished top two with puts of 18.35m and 15.47m respectively, which is just 15cm shy of the NI record for John and a PB for James. Sommer Lecky (Niall Wilkinson), clubmate of the Kelly brothers shared the High Jump title with Pippa Rogan as both athletes had identical cards with a best of 1.75m.

The podium in the Men’s Long jump was predictably filled by NI athletes but in the reverse order of the rankings going into the championships with Keith Marks (Clonliffe / John Shields) producing an impressive SB of 7.33m to take his first senior title ahead of City of Lisburn’s Ben Fisher with 7.17m and Adam McMullen’s 7.12m. Also in the horizontal jumps Mark Burton (City of Lisburn AC / Alan Kennedy) led all the way up until the final round where he had to settle for the silver medal with a performance of 14.77m.

Always an exciting event towards the end of the programme, the Men’s 400m didn’t disappoint as Crusaders AC athlete Andrew Mellon came from 3rd at the bell to finish strongly passing Brian Gregan and just missing out on taking the title with 48.02 to Cathal Crosbie’s 47.93.

Brunel University student Ellie McCartney (City of Lisburn / Ellie Kormis) cleared 3.85m to take silver in the Women’s Pole Vault and in the Men’s equivalent Peter Glass (Letterkenny AC / Jim Alexander) took bronze with 4.55m.

The championships also gave some of the Athletics NI Youth Academy athletes a chance to compete against Irelands best and of particular note was North Down’s Rachel McCann (Michael Roberts) who set a PB of 55.17 to qualify 3rd fastest in the Women’s 400m before taking a fall in the final just 30m short of the line. Also setting PB’s was Orangegrove AC’s Adam Sykes (Gillian Sykes) who ran 7.09 in the heats of the 60m before shaving even more time off in the semis with 7.06.