Irish Athletics News...European Team Champs & Racewalking News

The European Team Championships were held recently (18-19th June) in Izmir, Turkey. Ireland finished in 10th place of twelve with 224.5 points, ahead of Slovenia with 200.5 points, securing a place in the First League for 2013 when Athletics Ireland hopes to host the event.

The top individual performance was by Fionnuala Britton (Kilcoole AC) who finished second in the 5000m in a time of 15:37.78.In the Sprint hurdles, European Silver Medallist, Derval O’Rourke (Leevale AC) ran 13.11 to finish in fourth place.

Interview with Derval O'Rourke....


Racewalking........Updated Sun 26th June
The 10th Dublin International Grand Prix of Race Walking takes place in the Phoenix Park on Sunday, the 26th of June.

Ireland’s world championship silver medallist Olive Loughnane who lives in Coachford in Cork will be taking part in the womens 20 kms race. Also taking part is Rob Heffernan will be looking for a victory on home soil but will be faced with a field of athletes from 22 countries in a 50 plus strong field in the 20km.

Fourth in both the European 20km and 50km championships last season, Rob will use the event as part of his fine tuning for Daegu at the end of August. Olympian Jamie Costin hopes to do 10km on his return from injury.

Leitrim’s Colin Griffin is taking part in the 50km in search of the A standard for the London Olympics.

According to Athletics Ireland......."The event is held under a European Athletics Permit, is a points scoring competition for the IAAF Challenge and incorporates the National 20km Walk Championship, an international match between Ireland, England, Switzerland, Holland and Denmark and also the Paul Nihill Shield match between Ireland and England in the juvenile age groups. This match will see Kate Veale (West Waterford AC) take part in the U18 3km ahead of her attack on an IAAF World Youths medal in the middle of July."

Athletes from over 30 countries will take part in the event.

Update...Sun 26th June 2011.........Results

Olive Loughnane finished 2nd in a time of 1.31.44 in the 20k walk to Liu Hong of China, who won in 1.29.44. Hong won the bronze medal behind Loughnane at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin. Jamy Amarilis Franco Nunez of Guatamala was third in 01:32:48.

Robert Heffernan had to unfortunately pull out at 6km as a precautionary measure due to a tight hamstring.

Photos.......There is a very large gallery of photos on the West Waterford AC website