Masters Championships and Tailteann Games medal haul

Eight Masters gold and one silver were won between them in Belfast, by the City of Derry quartet, Danea Herron, Jacqueline McGinley, Robert Bigger and Declan Reed.

Tailteann Games medals came from three of the Spartans younger stars, Andrew Bolster, Mark McGarvey and Anna Barr and at the Limavady Round the Bridges road race, six locals led by the red vests Emmet McGinty in the runners up spot, pushed into the top ten finishers.

Robert Bigger's treble M50 Masters gold haul - 800m/400mHurdles/Triple Jump - was the local highlight in a profitible day on Sunday and Danea Herron also got a treble, gold in Long Jump and Irish record equalling figures of 25m 99cm in the F50 Javelin plus 80m Hurdles silver.

The in-form Jacqueline McGinley took the F40 1500m/3000m double and Declan Reed showed a clean pair of heels to all his M35 rivals as he posted 15m 47s for the 5000m gold.

Andrew Bolster continued to improve his 400m Hurdles times with a very impressive new PB of 57.9secs for silver in Tullamore on Saturday and Mark McGarvey also claimed silver in the 100m Hurdles, in which clubmate Ryan McParland tumbled and failed to finish.

Anna Barr had an excellent day, claiming a new sub 41s 300m PB for silver and then silver again in the Relay. The three other locals in action all came close to medals, Sean Harkin fourth in the 2000m Steeplechase, Claire Dougherty fourth in the High Jump and the fifth placed Roisin Laverty in the Long Jump.

Staying with the Juveniles the final qualifying positions in the Young Athletes League have been confirmed with City of Derry leading the way by almost 500 points after the three qualifying rounds. Olympian have also qualified in third spot but the Spartans are expected to seal the League and the trip to the UK Finals in September when Antrim hosts the NI Final at the end of July.

Emmet McGinty ran a good 54m 28secs for the runners up spot behind Neil Douglas of Ballymena Runners at last Thursday's annual Limavady Round the Bridges 10 miler as local runners filed six of the top ten places. McGinty is getting back into race action after a long hard cross country season and was heartened by his 54m 28s effort which left him 22 seconds adrift of the winners 54m 06s.Former Sparta star Tommy Hughes, now in the M50 age category was third on 54m 54s with Foyle Valley's Scott Rankin posting 55m 21s in fourth.

Gary Slevin got over his tumble at the recent Lifford 5K to run 57m 35s in fifth, ahead of Springwell's Stephen Joyce on 58m 14s with the next three places filled by locals, Gerry Duddy, 58m 30s, Kevin Carlin 58m 53s and Pius McIntyre on 59m 25s.

Race five in the Furey Insurances 5K Series moves to Carndonagh tomorrow night, the 7.30pm start sure to attract another good field to the Innishowen venue for the joint City of Derry and Inishowen AC promotion, sponsored by the local Atlanfish company.

The Carndonagh race is the first of three NW road races this week. It is followed on Friday by the Rathmullan 5K and then on Saturday its the Strabane 10K. Carn however pulled a big entry on its series debut last year and with series points plus excellent prizes on offer the action should be top class right down throughthe field.

Entries will be taken from 6pm at the Carndonagh Community School with the usual Donegal/Derry rivalry set to be enriched tomorrow with the participation of visiting American College athlete Hannah Davidson.

Hannah is here to see her boyfriend David McCarthy, now based in Derry and coached by Malcolm McCausland and she has been impressive in training since her arrival. Expect to see her close to the upfront action as the race unfolds.