DONEGAL IS WELL REPRESENTED in the nominations for the 2015 GloHealth National Athletics awards.
Letterkenny’s Mark English, who runs out of UCD AC, is nominated for the Athlete of the Year award, alongside Thomas Barr and Rob Heffernan.
English has had another superb year in which he won the silver medal in the 800m at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Prague and made the semi-finals of the World Athletics Championships in Beijing, finishing fifth in his semi.
English has also sealed his place at next summer’s Olympic Games in Rio and recently broke the Irish 600m record when he came home second in a time of 1:15.71 in Amsterdam.
Barr (Ferrybank AC) won the World Universities 400m hurdles title in Gwangju, South Korea and set a new Irish 400m Hurdles record of 48.65 at the Rome Diamond League while Heffernan put in a gallant performance defending his world 50km Race Walk title finishing 5th at the World Athletics Championships.
English and Barr are nominated for Track and Field Athlete of the Year, as are Ben Reynolds from North Down and John Travers of Donore Harriers.
English is also nominated for the Under-23 Athlete of the Year Award alongside a fellow Donegal man and UCD AC athlete, Karl Griffin, who made the final of the 800m, along with English, at the European Under-23 Championships in Estonia in July.
St Laurence O’Toole man Marcus Lawler is the other contender for the Under-23 Award.
Last year, English won the Athlete of the Year award while the Under-23 gong was picked up by Griffin.
Milford native and Letterkenny AC race walker Brendan Boyce has been nominated in the Endurance Athlete of the Year category alongside Heffernan, Fionnuala McCormack (Kilcoole) and Alex Wright (Leevale).
Boyce has qualified for Rio and competed at the World Championships in the 50k race walk.
Other awards presented on the night will include the Ultra Running Award, Mountain Running Award, Master Athlete of the Year, Tailteann Schools Boy and Girl Award, Team Performance of the Year and University Athlete.
For the fourth year running there will be awards presented to Performance Club of the Year and Development Club of the Year.
The awards will take place on Wednesday 25th of November from 12.00-3.30pm in the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Northwood.
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