Conor Bates | Sports Editor
Athlone IT’s state of the art indoor stadium was the venue for this year’s athletics indoor intervarsity competition, held on the 7th of February. In recent times DUHAC have shown solid growth and significant improvement in their standings in all competitions. This appeared to come to a head on the day for Trinity, as the college athletics club claimed five medals and broke five college records at the competition. In the final team standings, the men finished in sixth place, while the women’s team finished an agonising fourth, only eight points behind bronze medal winners, University of Limerick.
Undoubtedly the performance of the day went to scholar and reigning Irish long jump champion, Eamonn Fahey, who broke two college records. Fahey, who competes in sprinting and jumping events, cut the Trinity record for the 60m sprint in his first heat, setting a new benchmark of 6.99 seconds. This was followed up by a fifth place finish in the triple jump, during which Fahey smashed the TCD record, setting 13.23 metres as the new standard. Fahey also finished fourth in his specialist event, the long jump, earning some valuable points for the team. After the tournament, Fahey spoke of his personal achievements; “It’s a great personal highlight to come away with those college records, but unfortunate not to win the medals. The competition was exceptionally tough. It was a decent day out. I’ll be looking for more at the national indoor championships this weekend.”
Long distance runners did most of the damage for DUHAC’s ladies contingent, with two podium finishes in the 1500m. Veterans Irene Gorman and Becky Woods finished third and second respectively. The occasion will be particularly memorable for Pinks student Woods, who beat her own TCD record for that distance on her way to the silver medal, with a run of 4:37:44. Ladies harriers captain, Maria O’Sullivan, capitalised on her recent impressive form in the intermediate national cross country circuit, winning silver for the college in the 3000m. In another college record breaking performance, scholarship student O’Sullivan set the standard with a run of 9:52:15. Maria talked to University Times after the events: “It’s amazing to break the records we have done today. We scored a lot of points in the overall standings as well, and this all bodes really well for the outdoor competitions in April. We’re really improving well, in particular the girls, and I think we can break the top three overall soon. That’s the goal.”
Abbas Bowen (259) in action in the 60m. Eamonn Fahey broke the Trinity record in the same event. Photo: Amr Dawood
Men’s debutantes, Rob McDowell and Samuel Olo, made good impressions in their first competitions for DUHAC. Olo competed in the 200m individual and relay events, breaking the TCD record in the individual category. A time of 23:16 in his first heat sent him through as the new yardstick for the distance, but he was unfortunately knocked out at the semi-final stage. McDowell, who competed in four events of varying discipline, made his biggest splash in the 16kg Weight for Distance event, finishing in third place, with a very respectable 7.79 metres, and taking home the only male medal of the day. McDowell was very positive following the event; “I was massively grateful for the opportunity to compete, and it’s a real motivator to compete with and against athletes who challenge you. I was disappointed with the 60m race, but the throwing events went much better. Great experience.”
Laura Frey rounded out the medal count, with a third silver medal for TCD. Frey scored 3087 points in the combined events for an impressive second place finish. The finish earned five valuable points for the ladies overall tally, which stood at 31 points at the day’s end. The men’s team were boosted by some consistent performances from captain Conal Campion, who grabbed four of the men’s team’s 19 points.
DUHAC left Athlone with five medals and five new college records. Photo: Simon Devenney.
While the overall standings remained something of an unachievable task for DUHAC on the day, they are by no means out of sight. Some spectacular individual performances made Trinity’s day, with the medal count echoing the fallen records, numerically. This will be a memorable day in the lore of DUHAC, and there is a lot to be proud of in terms of progress. The old adage says you are only as strong as your weakest link. In DUHAC’s case, that link is not too far off the pace. Considering that both men’s and ladies relay teams narrowly missed out on medals, and a number of improving and stalwart athletes fell barely short of the mark, this was a tournament that could have finished even better for TCD. As it stands, the performances were positive, there is a remarkable foundation to build on and there is no doubt that it will be built on, before they get ready to do it all again at the outdoor intervarsities, in April.
