It was a masterful day yesterday for Donegal athletes at the National Masters Track & Field Championships in Tullamore, with plenty of medals and records.
Rosses AC’s Aidan Gillespie won three gold medals.
Gillespie leapt to gold in the M45 long jump with a 5.71m effort and in the high jump, Gillespie took the top gong with a 1.60m leap.
Gillespie completed the golden hat-trick when he soared to gold in the 110m hurdles, finishing in 17.63 seconds.
Finn Valley AC’s Sinead McConnell set a huge personal best of 15:02 in the 5k walk, setting new Donegal senior and Irish masters records in the process. McConnell’s previous best was 15:37 and she is in good shape ahead of the World Masters in Malaga next month.
Fellow Finn Valley walkers, Brian Ó Domhnaill and Margaret Reid, also targeting Malaga, won golds.
Kay Byrne set a pb of 11:26.41 to win silver in the 3k walk, while Caitriona Devine overcame a serious chest infection to medal in the 800m.
Isobel Breslin collected gold in the hurdles, silver in the shot put and bronze in the discus while Bosco Reid was celebrating in both the shot put and hammer.
Lifford-Strabane AC’s Mark Doherty threw 30.30m for bronze in the javelin and Doherty also finished fourth in the shot.
Damien Crawford won gold in javelin and hammer.
Dermot McElchar of Finn Valley was second in the 5,000m; Mark Connolly had silver in the 5,00m and bronze in the 1,500m; Noreen Bonner had bronze in both the 800m and 1500m; and Patrick Galvin was the gold medal winner in the high jump and left with silver in the long jump.
