Niall Allen reports: A team of eight Harriers came together to take third in the Inaugural One Day Masters League Team event hosted by DSD AC on Saturday August 30th. The League was based on age graded scoring which pitted mixed age and gender against each other over 11 events in a 4-hour time period.
First up for the team was Thomas Moran (M50) in the 100m with a time of 12.31 in wet and gusty conditions finished 6th overall and gaining 8 points for the team. Edel Maguire (W65) in similar conditions won the high jump with a jump of 1.36m and going on to attempt to break her Irish record. Niall Allen backed her win up with 2nd place in the shot and 12 points to the cause. Diarmuid Doyle (M65) in the 800m was up against an Olympian in Maria McCambridge and finished 6th overall. Stephen Harkness guested on the Dublin Country team in the 800 finishing 4th in his race in 2.18.82. Later he ran as a guest in the 1500 running 4.55.73 once again taking 4th.
The events kept coming with Michael Omakobia (M40) winning his heat in 25.70 seconds and finishing 8th overall. Niall Sherlock (M40) in the 1500m was third in his heat whilst feeling ill but managed to come back for the relay later that day. In the final individual events and still in wet conditions Niall Allen was 2nd in the discus and Colm Daly (M50) was 6th in the long jump.
At this point Clonliffe were 4th in the points table with both relays left. The weather cleared and the 4x100m team of Thomas, Michael, Colin and Niall came up trumps with 2nd overall and 12 valuable points. Directly after the 4×100 it was the 4×400 team of Edel, Aisling Andrews, Diarmuid and Michael (in his fourth event of the day) finished a battling 5th place overall securing third place in the team event for Clonliffe behind SLOT AC (2nd) and DSD (1st).
There were also guest events on the day and the standout result was Edel Maguire breaking her W65 Irish record in the 200m with a time of 30.19 in damp conditions.
Other results were Michael Omakobia 100m in 12.78, Colin Daly 100m in 13.21, Joe Gibbons (M65) 5.89m in the shot and 18.11m in the discus, Andrej Dmitrenko (M55) 27.32m also in the discus.
Hopefully the event will be back next year and we can pull together a strong team to challenge for top spot.
Roads round up: It’s been a quiet one! On Friday night. the 29th Sean Doran was 2nd in the Tara 5k (16.19). Saturday the 30th Eoin Rafter was the sole Clonliffe athlete in the National Half Marathon in Tullamore clocking 1:28.39