Irish athletes to the fore in Copenhagen...

Irish athletes were to the fore at the Copenhagen Athletic Games on Tuesday evening, the 21st of August 2012. In the womens 100m, Ailis McSweeney from Cork won in a time of 11.89 seconds. Ailis runs with Leevale AC and is the current national record holder over the distance (11.40 seconds). As you may well have seen, she is also a commentator on athletics for RTE television and has been out of action for the last while due to an Achilles injury.

WOMEN - 100 M w: +1.6m/s
1 11.89 MCSWEENEY Ailis IRL - Ireland
2 12.00 JARDER Erica -1986 SWE - Sweden
3 12.01 HANLON Margaret -1987 CAN - Canada

In the mens 400m, Brian Gregan of Clonliffe Harriers won the race in 46:00. Brian Murphy of Crusaders AC finished 3rd in 47:05 having run 46.71 in Stockholm last Friday.


MEN - 400 M
A-FINAL
1 46.00 GREGAN Brian IRL - Ireland
2 46.88 WARNER Michael GBR - United Kingdom
3 47.05 MURPHY Brian IRL - Ireland

Random photos with a Cork theme...

I came across these two photos while I was looking for some other material...

The Irish 100m record holder Ailis McSweeney from Cork suspended in mid-air during the women's 4 x 100m relay heat at the European Athletics Championships in Barcelona, Spain on the 31st of July 2010. Alongside is the legendary Merlene Ottey.

Somewhere underneath the national flags are Derval O'Rourke from Cork after winning the silver medal in the Women’s 100m Hurdles final during the European Athletics Championships, in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, July 31, 2010. Under the Turkish flag on the left is the race winner Nevin Yanit.

Potential Irish womens team for the 2012 Olympics...

The Irish Womens 4 x 100m Relay Team are currently training hard in an attempt to become the first Irish team ever to qualify for the Olympic games. The team consists of Derval O'Rourke, Ailis McSweeney, Amy Foster, Claire Brady, Niamh Whelan and Joan Healy.

With the team now getting proper funding and with coaching from Terri Cahill, they are hoping to run 44.5 or faster for this event.

A short video is now up on the RTE website

Ailis McSweeney bows out of the European Indoor Championships

Ailis McSweeney (Leevale AC) bows out of the European Indoor Championships in Paris after finishing 7th in the 1st Semi-Final of the womens 60m. Her time of 7:34 was fractionally faster then the 7:38 she ran earlier in the morning in the qualifying heats. Ailisng's PB for the distance is 7:32 which she ran just a few weeks ago in Belfast.

Irish Indoor Championships on RTE Player until 28th Feb

The Irish Indoor Athletics Championships were held last weekend (Sat 19th/Sun 20th Feb 2011) in Belfast. Highlights of this event are now available on the RTE Player until the 28th of February (Please note that it is 50 min long).

In amongst the many athletes, a number from Cork were taking part...

Ailis McSweeney of Leevale AC set a new personal best of 7:32 in winning the Womens 60 Metres (...see ~15:10 in the RTE Programme)

Robert Heffernan of Togher AC won the Mens 5 km walk in a time of 19:09 and lapped everyone else in the process (...see ~31:46 in the RTE Programme)

Marian Andrews of Togher AC (Married to Rob Heffernan) won the Womens 400m in a time of 54:00 seconds, just missing out by 0.35 seconds to qualify for the European Indoor Championships in Paris in March (...see ~8:50 in the RTE Programme).

The full results can be seen in PDF format HERE