National Indoors & Outstanding Marathon Debut By Craig In Seville
20 February 2023
There were some outstanding performances from our NI & Ulster athletes at this weekend’s 123.ie National Senior Indoor Championships at the National Indoor Arena in Abbotstown.
The competition took place over two days, with Oliver Swinney (Speed Development Project Track AC) running in the Men’s 60m sprints on Sunday, finishing in 2nd place in a PB of 6.70, putting him 4th on the Irish All Time List.
On Saturday Craig Newell (Ballymena and Antrim AC) came 3rd in the Men’s 200m crossing the line in 21.76, while City of Lisburn AC’s Josh Armstrong finished 3rd in the Men’s 60m Hurdles in 8.14, narrowly missing out on 2nd place. In the Women’s 60m Hurdles Kate O’Connor (Dundalk St Gerards AC) came 2nd in 8.60.
Next was the Men’s 3000m where Nick Griggs (Mid Ulster AC) and Callum Morgan (CNDR) both had fantastic runs, with Nick coming 2nd in 7:55.75 and Callum was 3rd in 8:16.66. Onto the Men’s 5000m Walk where Finn Valley AC’s Brendan Boyce came 2nd in 19:39.60 while club mate, Mark English won the Men’s 800m title in 1:52.47 followed by Roland Surlis (Annalee AC) who was 2nd in 1:53.21.
In the Women’s Pole Vault, Ellie McCartney (City of Lisburn AC) claimed Gold, jumping 4.16m. The Men’s Shot Put saw John Kelly (Finn Valley AC) throwing 19.19m placing him in 2nd place. Kate O’Connor got her second National Indoor silver medal in the Women’s Shot Put, throwing 14.28m.
Following into the Women’s Long Jump where Lauren Callaghan (Finn Valley AC) was 3rd jumping 6.07m. Finally, Lagan Valley AC’s Jai Benson won the Men’s Triple Jump in 14.72m followed by Conall Mahon (Tír Chonaill AC) who was 2nd in 14.40m.
Massive well done to all our NI & Ulster athletes who competed.
Athletics NI
Elsewhere…
North Down’s Jessica Craig continued her superb purple patch of running with another outstanding inaugural marathon run in Seville yesterday where she finished 34th in an eye-catching time of 2 hrs 38 mins 44 secs.
This performance came as no major surprise as the 32 year old has recently recorded a number of personal bests over the half marathon distance. This included 2nd place in the Bath Half last October in 1 hr 14 mins 52 secs followed by another PB of 1 hr 14 mins 33 secs in Spain in January.
The current Bangor 10k and Wall City 10 mile champion is currently undecided regarding her next marathon race but it could include one of the major world marathons this autumn.
The Seville race was won by Kenya’s Jackline Chelal in 2 hrs 20 mins 29 secs.
Brian Hill