Two Lifford Strabane AC athletes were this week named on the Northern Ireland and Ulster Senior Team for the Manchester International which takes place at Sports City in Manchester next Wednesday, 15 August.Â
The Manchester International is an annual event and will involve competition against England, Denmark, Iceland, Scotland and Wales.
Brendan O’Donnell, the current Irish Junior Hammer Throw champion and Gareth Crawford, last year’s Irish Junior Javelin champion will both make their senior international debuts at the Manchester venue.
Both athletes have experience of international competition at youth level with O’Donnell having represented Ireland at the SIAB Schools Internationals in Cardiff in 2014 and Grangemouth in 2015, the Celtic Games in Swansea in 2016 while he was a hammer finalist at both the European Youth Olympic Games in 2015 and the European Youth Championships in 2016, both held in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.
Crawford meanwhile represented Ireland at the Celtic Games in Swansea in 2016.
O’Donnell, who sat his Leaving Certificate in June, only moved up to senior level in July where he immediately made an impact, setting a new Donegal Senior Hammer Record of 58.71m in Bangor, Co. Down and finishing 4th in the National Senior Track and Field Championships just last week.
Crawford, meanwhile, has thrown the javelin over 63m this year in a season which has seen him take the bronze medal at the National Senior Track and Field Championships and place 5th at the British University Championships representing Loughborough University where he is a first year student.
The Northern Ireland and Ulster team fly out of Belfast next Tuesday for the event with Crawford in action in the Mens Javelin at 4.10pm on Wednesday afternoon and O’Donnell in action in the Mens Hammer at the later time of 6.00pm.
