Drogheda & District runner Tadhg Donnelly soared to an impressive victory on Saturday at his track season opener in The Armoury Stadium, the home of the famous Wannaker mile, in New York City.
The young Clogherhead man took on strong competition from athletes including those representing Ivy League and, flanked by his own team mates from Iona College, battled hard to join distinguished names from Irish athletics who have had famous victories at the same venue, including Ronnie Delaney and Eamonn Coughlan.
Tadhg took control of the race from early on, marking his rivals well he ran smoothly and felt good enough to throw down a dominant kick at the 4,000m mark. Nobody could match this surge and Tadhg held on for the win, with a new PB of 13:52.34, closing in 2:38 for the last 1000 meters. Tadhg’s magnificent win is a dream start to the season in such a prestigious venue, and we wish him the very best.
Another Drogheda & District athlete Matthew O’Shea is also beginning to make his mark in the U.S. Mark who is representing his college Charlestown (WV) ran the mile in 4min 23.31sec to finish fourth and then 90 minutes later he ran the 800m finishing seventh with a time of 1min59.53sec at the Ashland Indoor Track and Field Invitational, Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC).
Again the youngster was very pleased with his performance which was his best since going stateside last September and we can expect much more from him, especially given that training conditions have been less than hospitable recently as temperatures dived to -18°C and athletes were unable to train in foot deep snow.
Closer to home, Robbie Keane (below) had a super strong debut at the Men’s 3,000m on the Indoor track at the Galway Indoor Track & Field which was held at Athlone Stadium on Saturday.
Brave Robbie went out hard on this early pre-season sharpener, really showing his metal, running the first 1,000m in an eye watering 3min 05seconds, and switched places in the battle for 2nd and 3rd places, only to pipped with 100m to go. No doubt Robbie will bounce back twice as strong on the next occasion.
A squad of twelve hardy souls travelled to Raheny on Sunday afternoon for the annual AXA Raheny road race, which this year took place in abysmally wet conditions. Colm Prone ran a nice run, finishing in 30:36, followed by Niall Donnelly with a smart 31:17 and Shane Larkin also running well (32:40).
