There was a feast of fantastic performances by Rathfarnham WSAF AC athletes on the Abbotstown indoor track this weekend. Senior Gold medals in the 60m, 200m and 800m. Stephen Gaffney won both the 60m and 200m and both in new Championship record times of 6.87 and 21.55. The icing on the cake for Stephen was that his 200m time is a new PB!
In what was one of the most spectacular races of the day Lee Byrne won the 800m by 0.02s. Lying in first position on the last lap he was passed on the final bend and fell back to third. It looked like bronze but he dug deeper than ever before to spectacularly dip on the line to win gold by the narrowest of margins. The time was 1:56.07. What a fantastic spectator race!
In the women’s senior shot putt Isabel Mullarney finished 5th with a 9.61 throw.
The 3000m saw Paul Flemming winning M40 gold in an excellent time of 9:33.7.
In the 1500m M35 Ronan Kearns won silver in a time of 4:21.39 despite having only raced two days before (800m in 2:03:30 to come 5th) and being 39 years and 364 days old! Hard man John McHugh doubled up winning silvers in the M60 1500m in 5:32.10 and M60 800m in 4:45.55 with Robert Bigger wining gold in the M60 800m in 2:23.46. Vanessa Sallier won the W45 bronze in the 400m in a time of 1:14.55.
Our esteemed President, Eoin McLoughlin returned to competition after many years absence to come 4th in the M50 800m in 2:40.72. This is only the beginning…….
Pearse Coyle ran a solid 4:54.2 in the M50 1500m to come just outside the medals in 4th and Ken Crowley ran 8.23 in the M45 60m.
Well done to everybody who took part and thank you to Timetronics for the photo of the 200m finish.