Another National Juvenile Track and Field Championships has ended and with it the announcement that Lifford Strabane AC has topped the medal table to finish Ireland’s top Juvenile Throws club for the fourth year running.
This year the border club amassed a total of 14 national juvenile throws medals – 4 gold, 5 silver and 4 bronze – way ahead of the nearest challengers, Emerald AC of Limerick, Dunleer AC from Co. Louth and Fanahan McSeeeney AC from Co. Cork who each amassed a total of 3 gold medals each.
The medals came in the Hammer Throw, Javelin and Shot Put where the red and white vests mounted the podium on no fewer than 13 occasions over the 3 weekends of the championships.
Seven medals came in the Hammer Throw alone. There were gold medals for rising star Adrienne Gallen (u15 Girls) and Jude McCrossan (u16 Boys) with silver medals for Alisha Cuskelly (u14 Girls), Cormac O’Donnell (u15 Boys), Ross Henderson (u16 Boys) and Ryan Henderson (u18 Boys) while there was a bronze medal for Una O’Donnell (u14 Girls).
Three more medals came in the Javelin with a gold medal for Ellie McCurdy (u14 Girls), a silver medal for Dara Kirk (u17 Boys) and a bronze medal for Cormac O’Donnell (u15 Boys).
Meanwhile in the Shot Put, there was a second gold medal of the championships for Adrienne Gallen (u15 Girls) while two more bronze medals came courtesy of Una O’Donnell (u14 Girls) and Caoimhe Gallen (u12 Girls).
Speaking to Donegal Sport Hub, club Hammer Throw coach, John O’Donnell spoke of his delight at this year’s accumulation of medals: “To finish top juvenile throws club in Ireland for the fourth successive year is testament to the great work being done at grass roots level.
“To acquire such a medal haul at national championships brings great satisfaction as it means that we must be doing a lot of things right but these medals are not won in July – they are won during the months of September right through to June when athletes put in the hard hours of training under the watchful eyes of our dedicated coaches.
“Our facilities are second to none. We can cater for all the throwing events with the state of the art hammer and discus cage erected in 2017 and tartan javelin run up and generous shot put arena.
“We also have a fully equipped gymnasium which allows us to do all the necessary strength and conditioning work necessary to enable throwers to develop to be at the top of their game in competition”.
Club Shot Put coach Sharon Foley meanwhile spoke of the excellent coaching expertise available to the club’s throwers with the club placing huge emphasis on coaching development to ensure that new coaches to the club develop the technical skills necessary to coach our younger athletes.
Damien Crawford, who coaches Javelin and Discus at the Lifford Strabane club, spoke of the club generating a conveyor belt of throwers.
“The club’s success at juvenile level has begun to pay dividends at both junior and senior level with Brendan O’Donnell winning the National Junior Hammer title and Gareth Crawford winning the National Junior Javelin title” explained Crawford.
“Indeed Gareth Crawford recently picked up a National Senior Javelin bronze medal at the National Senior Championships in Santry while Brendan O’Donnell threw a new Donegal Senior Hammer Record the week before finishing in 4th place at the National Senior Championships” said Crawford, himself one of the all time greats of Irish javelin throwing.
Both O’Donnell and Crawford were this week selected to represent Northern Ireland and Ulster in the Hammer and Javelin respectively in the Manchester International against England, Denmark, Scotland and Wales on 15 August.
