Carey just misses out on gold medal

Strabane Track Club's Aaron Crawford threw 61m 91cm for the Men's Javelin gold, Tir Chonaill's Mary McLoone claimed Triple Jump gold and Long Jump silver.

Finn Valley's new American based recruit Tori Pena, cleared an Irish record of 4m 15cm for Women's Pole Vault gold and Letterkenny duo Maria McCambridge and Darren McBrearty took 5000m gold and 800m silver with respective 16 minutes 19.78 seconds and 1 minute 49.37 seconds clockings. Tir Choniall's Geraldine Stewart completed the medal tally with the women's shot putt bronze.

Back to Carey's brave bid to retain his 400m Hurdles crown and what an effort the big Spartan put in! The surprise gold medallist Leevale AC's Patrick Maher set off at a blisterig pace but was being hauled back in the latter stages by Carey and the bronze medallist, Clonliffe's John Fagan.

The teenage Maher, who is off today to the world junior championships in Canada got home in a new PB and Irish junior record of 51.53seconds, the Spartan took silver with 52.07 seconds with Fagan a close up third on 52.60 seconds - disapointment for Carey who had run a 51.73 seconds PB a week earlier but it was an enthralling race and no doubt he will return to the fray soon determined to reclaim his top spot.

News of the other Derry athletes in action, Gregory Roberts, Aaron Doherty and Pajo Hamilton. Roberts went in a high quality 5000m, won convincingly in 29 minutes 18.88 seconds by Gerry Thornton of Galway City Harriers with St Malachy's Joe McAllister - well known in these parts - third on 30 minutes 7.69 seconds.

The Spartan finished sixth after a battling run for 30 minutes 49.72 seconds, perhaps not as good as he anticipated but he too will be back into training determined to continue pressing his ambition to get up there among the big guns.

Aaron Doherty ran the 5,000m on Sunday and in a race won by the world class Alaister Cragg in 14 minutes 4.64 seconds he finished 17th with a new track PB of 15 minutes 24.95 seconds.

This run reflects his recent improvement over the distance and suggests he will go even faster before long-perhaps this weekend at the second round National League match in Athlone.

Pajo Hamilton got a new 1500m PB in Saturday's heats of 4 minutes 7.1 seconds but felt he ran a poor tactical race and he too will be keen to rectify matters in the coming weeks.

As expected Jason Smyth was withdrawn from the Sprints at the weekend and will travel to the Irish holding camp in Spain in advance of the upcoming European championships, confident his niggling hamstring injury will have benefitted from the enforced rest.

While Ivan Toner won last Friday's Cranford JG Memorial 4.2 miler in 22 minutes 11 seconds ahead of Joe McKinney and Michael Black while Helena Crossan once again was the top female finisher on 25 minutes 30 seconds.

The Donegal Grand Prix series moves to Churchill, near Letterkenny, for the Churchill Fair 5K this Friday at 7.30pm and the final race in the Furey Insurances Series is set for Wednesday July, 21 also at 7.30pm. Sponsored by Donnelly and Taggart the race HQ will be in the Sports Complex and the race looks set to pull another big entry.