Weekend Roundup - Record Breaking Start to 2025
14 January 2025
Ellie McCartney equalled the Northern Ireland Senior Indoor pole vault record with a 4.31m clearance, highlighting a weekend of exceptional performances by NI athletes across various events.
At the World Athletics Indoor tour event held in Loughborough on Sunday Ellie McCartney (Kate Rooney) won the women’s pole vault with a height of 4.31m which was an indoor PB for the City of Lisburn athlete who achieved a top 8 finish at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games.
The significance of this height is that it equals the current Northern Ireland Senior Indoor record held by Zoe Brown since 2014 and moves Ellie to equal 2nd on the Irish All-Time list (tied with Zoe).
On Saturday at the AAI Games in Dublin, Olympian Heptathlete Kate O’Connor (Michael O’Connor) destroyed her previous personal best over the 60m Hurdles when winning the event in 8.37 seconds. This took a full two tenths of a second off her time in the same venue from 2021.
There were several strong performances at the AAI Games from NI’s promising junior athletes including a PB and first time below 7 seconds from U18 sprinter Joshua Awujoola (Adam McMullen / Orangegrove AC) with 6.96, PBs for Ava and Finn Diver (Catherine Diver / Beechmount Harriers) in the 800m with 2:13.96 and 1:54.99 respectively and Emer McKee (Willowfield Harriers / Mark Kirk) ran an indoor 3000m PB of 9:49.17 to finish second.
Andrew Milligan broke the North Belfast Harriers 10km record at the Valencia 10km on Sunday. His time of 29.13 was a 3 second personal best and took one second off the record held by Stephen Scullion from 2010. Hannah Irwin (Cambridge / Jo & Gavin Pavey) was 30th in an impressive 32:32 and North Down AC’s Jessica Craig ran 34:07.
Elsewhere, at the UK Cross Challenge in Glasgow, Maddison Welby (City of Lisburn / Lynn Welby) won a highly competitive U15 girls cross country race.