Big PB’s for locals

In perfect conditions and in sharp contrast to Sunday’s National League wind blown track, the American knocked off a succession of 63 seconds laps to finally lower Eamon Coghlan’s long standing stadium record of 7 minutes and 56 seconds with an impressive front running display.

Pajo Hamilton followed his Spartans club mates on track in the 800m B race and sped to a brilliant new PB of 1 minute and 51.84 seconds, a rich reward indeed and thoroughly deserved after chasing that elusive big run all season.

Staying with recent results, the resurgent James Brown produced another podium performance with his runners up spot in Tuesday night’s Burtonport 5K with a 15 minutes and 48 seconds effort.

Back to the National League action and confirmation that the City of Derry womens squad led the Division 1 qualifiers into next month’s League Final in Tullamore after last Sunday’s impressive showing in Dublin.

The female red vests boosted their overall points total to 247.5 to claim top spot ahead of St Abbans on 242 and the 214 points of Wexford County. The other city club Olympian finished in 10th place with 152 points, a decent performance by their young squad.

The August 18th Final looks like a straight shoot out between the Spartans and the impressive St Abbans outfit but the locals go in with a two point advantage, courtesy of their table topping exploits to date. Those two points could be crucial, both squads are closely matched and the Spartans will have to compensate for the absence of their prolific thrower Maggie Donnelly, who misses out due to a pre planned holiday clash.

The team management trio, Danea Herron, Caitlin Ketelar and Bridgeen Byrne will be adressing that and other relevant factors as they bid to win the division decider and book their squad’s place in next year’s Premier division.

Good news for the male Spartans as despite their poor showing last weekend they did just enough to preserve their Premier status. They finished just one place above the relegation places and will live to fight another day in the top tier. However they will have to up their game significantly on this year’s less than convincing committment to the League.

The Olympian lads narrowly missed qualification for the division 1 final after finishing just one place and three points off the eight placed qualifier, Kerry club, An Riocht AC.

Their 79 points from Santry last Sunday wasn’t enough to push their total points above the Kerry squad’s overall total of 191 and they will be back to the drawing board again in 2013.

There is more track and field championship this weekend with the final leg of the National Juvenile championships on Saturday and Sunday in Tullamore. Amy Jackson and Shane McGowan will chase 1500m medals in their respective age groups and lets hope the conditions will favour them and the other locals going for glory this weekend.

Road running is well catered for with tonight Friday’s Drumhalla, Rathmullan 5k at 7.30pm; the first of the Foyle Valley ‘Out the Line’ Series, a 3K at 11am tomorrow (Saturday) morning and then the Malin Towm 1K/5k on Sunday from 3pm.

The Dungloe Festival 5k follows on Tuesday evening at 7.30pm to ensure the local road running fraternity are spoiled for choice.